Ceasefire in Karabakh, Azerbaijan and Armenian separatists to start talks on future of the region Thursday
the future of the Nagorno-Karabakh region and the ethnic Armenians who live there will start on Thursday. The ceasefire agreement was mediated by Russian peacekeeping forces. On Wednesday, Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh authorities said a ceasefire was reached with Russian mediation that included the military demands, but said “reintegration" of the region was still to be discussed.
Nagorno-Karabakh, located in South Caucasus region, is internationally recognised as Azerbaijani territory, but separatist Armenians claim that the area is their ancestral homeland. The mountainous region has a population of about 120,000, and has been a flashpoint since the collapse of the Soviet Union. After the fight erupted between the Azerbaijan military and the Armenian separatists, ethnic Armenians had fled the area and made their way to the airport in Stepanakert, the capital of Karabakh.
On Tuesday, Azerbaijan had sent its troops backed by artillery into Karabakh in an attempt to push back Armenian separatists. Its military operation had faced sharp criticism from the United States and some European countries. A report by Reuters quoted Ruben Vardanyan, a former top official in Karabakh's ethnic Armenian administration, as saying: “They are basically saying to us that we need to leave, not stay here, or accept that this is a part of Azerbaijan - this is basically a typical ethnical cleansing operation." Around 100 people had been killed and hundreds more injured in the fighting, Vardanyan told Reuters.
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