Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia signed an agreement to end six weeks of fierce fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh in a deal Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan described as “unspeakably painful” in an emotional Facebook post.
The region is internationally recognised as Azerbaijani but has been occupied by Armenian since 1994.
Under the deal, Azerbaijan will hold on to areas of Nagorno-Karabakh that it has taken during the conflict and Armenia will also withdraw from several other adjacent areas (Aghdam, Lachin and Kalbajar) over the next few weeks.
“The signed trilateral statement will become a (crucial) point in the settlement of the conflict,” Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev said in a televised live meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
President Aliyev hailed the agreement as of “historic importance,” and ” amounting to a capitulation” by Armenia.
Russian President Putin said that Russian peacekeepers would be deployed to patrol the front line.
Russia’s defence ministry confirmed that 1,960 personnel would be involved and reports said planes had left an airbase at Ulyanovsk on Tuesday carrying peacekeepers and armoured personnel carriers to Karabakh. Part of their role will be to guard the “Lachin corridor”, which links the Karabakh capital, Stepanakert, to Armenia.
Turkey will also take part in the peacekeeping process.
Under the deal, Armenian forces must pull out of the all the adjacent regions it had occupied by Dec. 1.