Negotiators from Azerbaijan and the breakaway Armenian republic in Nagorno-Karabakh have held talks over the future of the region, with Baku claiming to fully control it after a military offensive this week.
Video published by Azerbaijani media earlier showed the delegation from the self-styled Artsakh republic accompanied by Russian peacekeepers driving to the city of Yevlakh after a ceasefire was declared following a 24-hour Azerbaijani offensive. As part of the ceasefire agreement, ethnic Armenian forces agreed to disband, in a capitulation to Azerbaijan.
Armenia has said it is not a party to the ceasefire or the negotiations. The country was defeated in a 44-day war with Azerbaijan in 2020, and the prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, has warned that Azerbaijan is seeking to drag Armenia into another conflict.
Thousands of protesters had gathered on Wednesday evening to denounce the Armenian government’s perceived failure to protect ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Nagorno-Karabakh and some surrounding territories have been under ethnic Armenian control since the end of a separatist war in 1994, but Azerbaijan regained the territories and parts of Nagorno-Karabakh itself in 2020.
Local officials, as well as those in Yerevan, have said Azerbaijan is undertaking a campaign of ethnic cleansing by seeking to drive out the tens of thousands of remaining ethnic Armenian residents of the region.
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