Azerbaijan said on Wednesday that it would stop its assault on a breakaway Armenian enclave after the pro-Armenian authorities there announced an apparent surrender to Azerbaijan’s demands, a development that could avert a wider war in a volatile region while altering its geopolitics.
In a statement carried by the Azerbaijani state news agency Azertac, the country’s Defense Ministry said that it had agreed to halt its “antiterror measures” in the enclave, Nagorno-Karabakh, after the separatist government there agreed that its forces would lay down their arms and withdraw from their battle positions.
Around the same time, the Armenian separatist government issued its own statement declaring that it had accepted a Russia-brokered cease-fire after Azerbaijani forces managed to break through Armenian positions and “take control of a number of heights and strategic road junctions.”Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous enclave slightly bigger than Rhode Island in area, is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but is home to tens of thousands of Armenians who stayed after a 2020 cease-fire and are under the protection of Russian peacekeepers.
Persons:
Azertac
Organizations:
country’s Defense Ministry
Locations:
Azerbaijan, Nagorno, Karabakh, Russia, Rhode