Putin warned Armenia: withdrawing from ceasefire is suicide

The Russian leader has voiced the Russian-mediated ceasefire agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh, amid growing protests against the agreement and urging Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to resign. in the capital of Armenia, Yerevan.

In a national television interview on the ceasefire agreement in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone, Putin was asked whether a new government that came to power could give up the agreement. “It would be a big mistake,” Putin warned.

“A country that is at war or in danger of resuming hostile activities, as it has been for the past eight years, cannot do so to divide society from within. I think this is completely unacceptable, counterproductive and extremely dangerous, “Putin said.

The full truce, signed on November 10, was seen as a victory for Azerbaijan after a bloody six-week war when it was granted territorial concessions. Meanwhile, the agreement has been seen as an “act of surrender” by Armenia and has sparked a wave of protests against the government of Prime Minister Pashinyan.

The Armenian president has asked to hold early elections and fire the foreign minister this week in connection with the controversial agreement. Armenian security services also said last week that they had interrupted an assassination plot against Prime Minister Pashinyan involving an opposition politician and a veteran.

Prime Minister Pashinyan said he has no intention of resigning, but has launched a government roadmap to overcome the crisis and “ensure the democratic stability of Armenia.” The 15-point plan included assistance to those wounded in the war, assistance for the return of Armenian refugees to Nagorno-Karabakh and a plan to modernize the army. All these steps were intended to appease critics who said the government was not acting harshly enough to protect the region and its people in Azerbaijan.

Pashinyan also called for the resumption of negotiations by the Organization for Security and Cooperation of Europe (OSCE), which include Russia, France and the United States, on the final fate of Nagorno-Karabakh, which Armenians call Artsakh. The ceasefire does not mention what will happen to Stepanakert, the largest city in the region, and other territories in Nagorno-Karabakh after the deployment of the Russian peacekeepers ends after 5 years.

Putin has a close relationship with Prime Minister Pashinyan, who came to power in 2018 amid a wave of non-violent protests in Armenia. But the Russian leader smoothed out their differences while trying to maintain a ceasefire agreement regarding the protracted conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Turkey’s growing regional ambitions and historic involvement by France and America. Russia also “stretched” elsewhere by sending nearly 2,000 peacekeepers to the region during the most notable military deployment in the southern Caucasus in the past decade.

The ceasefire agreement liberated territories that Armenia had won after a bloody conflict in the early 1990s. Tens of thousands of Armenians fled Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas as they prepared to move. assign territorial control to the Azerbaijani side. Families have loaded their belongings into cars and some have even burned their houses before leaving.

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According to the guardian