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Armenian forces are expected to begin withdrawing today from the Kalbajar city area near Nagorno-Karabakh, part of which is under Azerbaijan’s control under a peace agreement concluded after six weeks of fighting, BTA reported. , citing AFP.
The inhabitants of the towns of this region chose to set fire to their houses to avoid falling into the hands of the enemy. Baku and Yerevan have challenged control of the mountain enclave for decades. Yesterday, their owners burned dozens of houses in the village of Sharektar, which has been controlled by Armenian forces since the first war in the early 1990s, which killed 30,000 people. Before the war-related resettlements of the 1990s, the Kalbajar district was populated almost exclusively by Azerbaijanis. But the Armenian government later funded the resettlement of Armenian families in the area. AFP reporters in the field have seen in the last two days how many residents load their belongings onto trucks and go to Armenia.
The peace agreement provides for the presence of Russian peacekeepers, who arrived in Stepanakert, the main administrative center of Nagorno-Karabakh, on Friday. Although Stepanakert remained under Armenian control, its inhabitants abandoned it due to the fierce fighting. The local authorities have urged them to return home, but almost all the shops in the city remain closed. Yesterday a dozen buses arrived there from Armenia with locals. The internet is down and Azerbaijani operators are already seizing mobile phones.
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