Ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh said on Thursday they were dissolving the breakaway statelet they had defended for three decades, where more than half the population has fled since Azerbaijan launched a lightning offensive last week.
In a statement, they said their self-declared Republic of Artsakh would "cease to exist" by Jan. 1, in what amounted to a formal capitulation to Azerbaijan.
For Azerbaijan and its president, Ilham Aliyev, the outcome is a triumphant restoration of sovereignty over an area that is internationally recognized as part of its territory but whose ethnic Armenian majority won de facto independence in a war in the 1990s.
Some 70,500 people had crossed into Armenia by early Thursday afternoon, Russia's RIA news agency reported, out of an estimated population of 120,000.
"Analysis of the situation shows that in the coming days there will be no Armenians left in Nagorno-Karabakh," Interfax news agency quoted Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan as saying. "This is an act of ethnic cleansing."
Azerbaijan denies that accusation, saying it is not forcing people to leave and that it will peacefully reintegrate the Karabakh region and guarantee the civic rights of the ethnic Armenians.
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