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Azerbaijan regained control of the Lachin region, Armenia’s third and final installment near Nagorno Karabakh, according to the peace agreement concluded between the two countries under the auspices of Russia. On Tuesday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev welcomed a “new reality” in a televised address to the nation.
For the first time in nearly thirty years, Azerbaijani soldiers raised their flag in the Lachin region on Tuesday, the third and last that Armenia delivered near Nagorno KarabakhUnder the ceasefire agreement that ended the six-week fighting.
Shortly after midnight, he entered Azerbaijani military parade To the region that has been under the control of Armenian forces since a war in the 1990s that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
Journalists from the French News Agency saw a group of about 10 soldiers participating in a brief ceremony in the courtyard of an official city building, raising the Azerbaijani flag.
The Lachin region, as well as the Agdam region, which surrendered on November 20, and Kalbjar, which surrendered on November 25, constitute a buffer zone surrounding Karabakh, the republic unilaterally declared by the Armenian majority since the end of the first war in 1994.
Baku regained control of four other provinces playing the same role, during the six weeks of fierce battles that took place between the two camps since late September. All regions were out of the control of Azerbaijan since the end of the 1994 war.
The mountainous and now snow-covered region of Lachin stretches from north to south as far as Iran along the eastern border with Armenia, and is especially known as the corridor of the same name.
This corridor is controlled by Russian peacekeepers and is currently the only connecting road Nagorno Karabakh Armenia.
“New reality”
Residents did not wait long to leave the region, having destroyed homes and infrastructure on the lands they abandoned.
Some chose to stay like Levon Geforgoyan, a merchant in Lachen’s main square.
“I have lived here for 22 years, I started from scratch, I built everything,” said the 48-year-old, adding: “I hope I can continue. I still have a loan to pay. If I leave, I have to burn everything.”
Valera Livonian, a co-owner of a supermarket and a hotel, said she also wanted to stay, counting on the road to Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh. “People can stop here to eat or drink tea or coffee. Not only Armenians, but also Russians and foreigners,” he added.
For his part, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Tuesday welcomed a “new reality” in a televised address to the nation. “We expelled the enemy from our lands. We have restored territorial integrity. We have ended the occupation,” he said.
Aliyev noted that some 50,000 Azerbaijanis lived in the Lachin region before the war in the 1990s, and announced that they would return “in the near future.”
In Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, the streets filled with people carrying flags to celebrate Lachin’s restoration, according to an AFP journalist.
Ambiguous mode
For her part, an analyst from the International Crisis Group, Olesya Vartanyan, believes that the recent withdrawal from the region is proof that the ceasefire agreement is “in force.” But he warns that the new situation remains “unclear.”
He explained that “the agreement that Moscow obtained is very precise in terms of land restoration, but it is ambiguous in several aspects, such as the mandate of the Russian peacekeepers and the organization of the life of the local population, both Armenian and Azerbaijani. “.
Meanwhile, many Nagorno Karabakh residents who fled the recent fighting are now returning to the separatist region. The Russian military announced Tuesday that it had so far helped more than 26,000 people return.
Moscow reported that its soldiers removed mines from the perimeter of the overland corridor in Lachin and helped to repair the destroyed power line.
The ceasefire agreement signed on November 9, at a time when the military situation was disastrous for Armenia, confirms Azerbaijan’s victory and gives it great progress on the ground.
It allows the preservation of Nagorno Karabakh, despite the reduction of its area, and provides for the deployment of two thousand Russian blue helmets.
The agreement, signed under the auspices of Russia, recalled Moscow’s strong role in the Caucasus, as well as the growing influence of Turkey, Baku’s main supporter.
On Tuesday, Turkey announced an agreement it had signed with Russia on the establishment of a joint center whose task would be to monitor the ceasefire in the Nagorno Karabakh region. Also on Monday, Turkish demining workers arrived, as the area is known to have the most mines in the former Soviet Union.
On the other hand, it seems that Western countries are losing influence, since neither France nor the United States, which are mediators of being members of the Minsk Group, which has the mandate since the 1990s to find a sustainable solution to the crisis, they obtained conclusive results in the file.
France 24 / AFP
