The Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh will dissolve their separatist republic on January 1, as announced on Thursday, a week after Azerbaijan’s military victory, which forced more than half of the population to flee.

In a decree, Samvel Shajramanyan, leader of the Armenian-majority enclave, announced the dissolution of “all government institutions and organizations (…) from January 1, 2024.”

This means that “The Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh,” known to Armenians as Artsakh and founded more than thirty years ago, “will cease to exist.”

Azerbaijan launched a brief military offensive on September 19, 2023 in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, a separatist enclave home to about 120,000 ethnic Armenians.

From Yerevan, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that according to his predictions “there will be no Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh in the coming days.”

And this after more than 70,000 people, almost half the population, fled the enclave, despite statements from Azerbaijan asking them ‘not to leave their homes’.

Pashinyan accused Azerbaijan of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in this area of ​​the Caucasus, and urged the international community to ‘take action’.

“It’s painful. Our whole lives have turned to dust,” said Lilit Grigorian, a 32-year-old teacher waiting with her son in Goris, an Armenian town near the border.

mass flight

The mountainous area lies within the international borders of Azerbaijan. The Armenians seceded during the collapse of the Soviet Union, and since then they have been at odds with Azerbaijani power, against which they fought two wars, one from 1988 to 1994 and the second in the fall of 2020, in which they took over several areas lost. .

Last week, Azerbaijan launched a lightning-fast military offensive and forced the Armenians to capitulate within 24 hours, without the intervention of Russian peacekeepers, who have been deployed in that area since late 2020.

This satellite photo taken and released by Maxar Technologies on September 26, 2023, in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, shows a long traffic jam along the Lachin corridor of Armenians fleeing the region. Armenia said on September 27, 2023 that 42,500 refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh have arrived since Azerbaijan’s lightning offensive. Photo: AFP

Armenia, which supported that area for decades, did not intervene militarily this time either, paving the way for an effective reintegration of the region into Azerbaijan.

Since then, tens of thousands of Armenians have fled Azerbaijani forces, fearing repression, through the Lachin Corridor, the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to the Republic of Armenia.

Armenian authorities reported on Thursday the arrival of 78,000 refugees, more than half of the enclave’s 120,000 residents.

The Armenian government has so far been able to house only 2,850 people, portending a humanitarian crisis. “Armenia has no resources and will not be able to achieve this without foreign help,” political analyst Boris Navasardyan told AFP.

The Kremlin, meanwhile, indicated that it “takes note” of the announcement of the dissolution of the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno Karabakh, but noted that it “sees no reason” for people to leave the enclave.

Refugees board a bus near a Red Cross registration center in Goris, Armenia on September 27, 2023. Photo: AFP

For his part, The Armenian parliament announced on Tuesday that it will vote on the ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), much to the chagrin of Russia. who called the initiative ‘unfriendly’.

An arrest warrant has been issued against President Vladimir Putin by that court for the alleged “illegal deportation” of Ukrainian minors since the beginning of the Russian invasion.

Separatist leader arrested

Azerbaijani authorities on Wednesday detained businessman Ruben Vardanyan, who led the enclave’s Armenian separatist government from November 2022 to February 2023, when he tried to reach Armenia.

A photo from Azerbaijan’s State Security Service shows Ruben Vardanyan (C), former foreign minister of Nagorno-Karabakh, being escorted by security service agents after he was arrested the previous day while trying to cross into neighboring Armenia stabbing, in Baku, Azerbaijan, on September 28, 2023. Photo: EFE

He was accused of financing terrorism and setting up an illegal armed organization and placed in pre-trial detention for four months, according to the Azerbaijani State Security Service.

In August 2022, Russian billionaire Vardanyan announced that he renounced Russian citizenship and moved to Nagorno-Karabakh with an Armenian passport.

Last week’s offensive left 213 dead on the Armenian side. Baku said Thursday it had lost 186 soldiers, 12 Interior Ministry officials and one civilian.

Following the call to protect civilians launched on Tuesday by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, his German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock, asked Baku to authorize the entry of international observers to Nagorno Karabakh. (JO)