Azerbaijan and Armenia Sign Armistice Over Nagorno Karabakh

By teleSUR

10 November 20

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said he had signed a deal with Azerbaijan and Russia's leaders to end the military conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region on Tuesday morning after more than a month of bloodshed.

ussian President Vladimir Putin has confirmed that Baku and Yerevan have struck a deal to end the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh and that Russian peacekeepers will be deployed along the contact line.

The agreement will create conditions for a long-term settlement of the crisis in both peoples' interests, Putin said shortly after midnight Moscow time on Tuesday (22:30 GMT Monday), confirming reports of the armistice Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan described as “painful” but necessary.

The declaration has followed six weeks of heavy fighting and advancement by Azerbaijan’s forces. Baku said on Monday it had seized dozens of more settlements in Nagorno-Karabakh, a day after proclaiming victory in the battle for the enclave’s strategically positioned second-largest city.

The fighting had raised fears of a wider regional war, with Turkey supporting its ally Azerbaijan, while Russia has a defense pact with Armenia and a military base there.

Azerbaijan says it has since Sept. 27 retaken much of the land in and around Nagorno-Karabakh that it lost in a 1991-94 war, killing an estimated 30,000 people and forced many more their homes. Armenia has denied the extent of Azerbaijan’s territorial gains.

According to Putin, Russia will deploy almost 2,000 peacekeepers along the line of contact and the “Lachin corridor,” the road connection between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia proper.

According to the draft, these peacekeepers will move in as the Armenian armed forces withdraw and will stay for five years. An automatic five-year extension of their mandate is envisioned unless any party objects six months before its expiration.