Cease-Fire Declared in Nagorno-Karabakh After Deadly Azerbaijani Assault
Armenian, Azerbaijani ambassadors speak with TML before uneasy truce ends military strikes that result in dozens of Armenian casualties
Air raid sirens followed by artillery, missile, and drone strikes by Azerbaijani forces on Nagorno-Karabakh signaled a new round of violence and, perhaps, the death knell for an ethnic Armenian presence in the region.
A cease-fire was declared on Wednesday afternoon, but not before at least 34 Armenians had been killed—including two children—and 200 wounded, according to Armenian reports. The fresh fighting follows three years of failed peace talks, skirmishes, and weeks of military buildup in the region.
According to several reports, the Armenian government in Artsakh agreed to lay down arms and abandon military positions.
“During two days of fierce battles, the Artsakh Defense Forces heroically defended against the enemy, which was much superior in manpower and military equipment, and inflicted heavy losses on it,” the Nagorno-Karabakh president’s office said in a statement, adding that Azerbaijan took control of “a number of heights and strategic road junctions.”
Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to Israel Mukhtar Mammadov told The Media Line on Tuesday said his country launched the operation as an attempt to uproot “illegal terrorism” on Azerbaijani territory after two soldiers were wounded and two civilians killed by landmines.
“Right now, Azerbaijan forces are using high-precision targets on military installations,” he said, adding that civilians were warned by SMS to avoid military installations and to seek shelter.
Though home to 120,000 ethnic Armenians who have established their own government and defense forces, Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory.
“There are illegal armed forces on the territory of Azerbaijan. They have to leave,” he said. “No independent, sovereign country in the world would accept foreign military on their soil, so why does Azerbaijan have to be an exception to this?”
Mammadov said that after “the gray area” in the region, “the puppet regime set up by Armenia,” is removed, he hoped there would be a chance for peace with Armenia.
It is the finalizing of the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh by directly attacking the people
However, Arman Akopian, Armenia’s ambassador to Israel, told The Media Line that contrary to official Azerbaijani statements, residential buildings and other civilian establishments, including a school in a village, were attacked on Tuesday.
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“It is the finalizing of the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh by directly attacking the people,” Akopian told The Media Line. “They are trying to create unbearable conditions for the people and force them out of Nagorno-Karabakh.”
Akopian said, despite the ambassador’s words, it is hard to believe that Armenians remaining in Nagorno-Karabakh would be granted full rights as Azerbaijani citizens after a nine-month blockade on the region and now these attacks.
“What kind of rights does he have in mind? What kind of country attacks its own citizens? Why do they attack children?” he asked.
Winds of war have been brewing for months. In December, Azerbaijan seized control of the Lachin Corridor, the only road between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Transport of food, fuel, medicine, and other essential goods was limited until stopped entirely on June 15. Former International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said this action was tantamount to genocide.
Last week, Israeli media reported increased cargo flights, suspected of carrying weaponry, from a military base in the Jewish state to Azerbaijan as recently as Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. Over the past seven years, nearly 100 such flights have been recorded, according to an investigation by Haaretz, and spikes in these shipments have typically preceded an outbreak of fighting.
Avidan Freedman, co-founder of Yanshoof, an organization trying to stop Israeli arms sales to human rights violators, told The Media Line he is unaware of any nation with “such a massive investment and such a massive presence of Israeli weapons” as Azerbaijan.
Some 70% of Azerbaijan’s military imports in the five years leading up to 2020 were from Israel whose drones were credited with propelling Azerbaijan to military victory. Now, Freedman said, the dictatorship regime is intent on finishing the 2020 war.
Freedman, who has been warning of a potential genocide in the region for months now, said, “Israel is complicit in that, and Israeli citizens are complicit as part of a democracy that has been arming a dictatorship.”
Israelis and the Jewish state have a moral obligation to oppose genocide, he added. Yanshoof, along with dozens of Israeli academics, appealed to President Isaac Herzog, the Foreign Ministry, and the Supreme Court to halt support of Azerbaijan, but letters have gone unanswered, and the court placed a gag order on protocols related to weapons sales to Baku.
“In 2020, the Azeris recruited Syrian jihadists to fight alongside them. We had Israeli weapons and technology fighting alongside Syrian jihadists,” Freedman noted.
“The fear that is hovering is that the world will be too involved in other issues to care about the 120,000 Armenians who are living in their ancestral homeland, for thousands of years uninterrupted, and they will be killed or expelled,” he said.
Dr. Eldad Ben Aharon, an international security analyst at Dublin City University, said the fighting won’t end with this round due to the long list of regional actors, many of whom are interested in testing—and selling—their weapons.
“Israel and Turkey supply arms to Azerbaijan while Russia, but mainly India, supply arms to Armenia,” Ben Aharon told The Media Line. “I don’t believe that this conflict will end so fast in the long term. It keeps evolving.”
Ben Aharon, a post-doc fellow with the Irish Research Council, believes the fate of the “fragile” cease-fire will be determined over the next 48 hours due to deep mistrust between the two sides. He also predicted that Russia’s role will be diminished going forward.
“They need their arms concentrated [in Ukraine] and this is leaving more room for other superpowers to weigh in and to negotiate a peace treaty,” he said.
Foreign officials have widely condemned the incursion. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that “these actions are worsening an already dire humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh and undermine prospects for peace.”
Today, Azerbaijan proved itself once again to be a ruthless aggressor, launching unprovoked attacks in Artsakh. We must halt ethnic cleansing and stop a second Armenian Genocide.
However, US Rep. Adam Schiff had harsher words.
“Today, Azerbaijan proved itself once again to be a ruthless aggressor, launching unprovoked attacks in Artsakh,” the California congressman said on social media. “We must halt ethnic cleansing and stop a second Armenian Genocide.”
These attacks come after Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has made overtures to the United States, and even Ukraine, while distancing from Russia, its long-time yet lukewarm ally. Last week, Armenia hosted American troops for a joint military exercise and sent aid to Ukraine for the first time since Russia invaded the former Soviet Republic last year.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said its “peacekeepers have been diligently fulfilling” their duty since the cease-fire and are facilitating evacuations.
The Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh voted to break away from Baku after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, a decision that led to war until 1994 when a cease-fire went into effect. Sporadic fighting continued until 2020 when another war erupted, forcing Armenians to cede roughly two-thirds of the territory. The remaining cities are connected to Armenia through the Lachin corridor and since the 2020 war have been supervised by Russian peacekeepers.
