Protesters have clashed with riot police in Armenia’s capital after Azerbaijan claimed victory in a 24-hour offensive in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Several hundred demonstrators threw bottles and stones at police guarding government buildings and smashed windows in the city of Yerevan’s Republic Square on Wednesday night as they voiced anger at the government’s handling of the crisis, which has resulted in a ceasefire agreement that includes provisions for the local Armenian government to disband its military.
They also criticised what they see as the failures of Russia – which brokered the ceasefire and has had a peacekeeping force there since 2020 – and the west to protect the lives of ethnic Armenians.
Officers used stun grenades and made arrests as they protected official buildings, while thousands of protesters waved the separatist region’s flag and blocked a main road. Protesters chanted “Artsakh, Artsakh, Artsakh!” – the Armenian name for Nagorno-Karabakh – and “Nikol is a traitor!” in reference to the Armenian prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan. One police officer suffered a head injury.
In a televised address on Wednesday night, Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, said the offensive had “restored sovereignty” and praised his army for achieving the “complete surrender” of local Armenian fighters. Estimates of the number killed in Tuesday’s attacks range from dozens to hundreds. Gegham Stepanyan, the region’s rights ombudsman, said that at least 10 civilians were among the dead, five of them children.
Aliyev said it appeared that local Armenians from Karabakh had “forgotten that they live in Azerbaijan” but said there would not be reprisals against the local population.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday its peacekeepers had taken in about 5,000 Karabakh residents after evacuating them from dangerous areas, the Interfax news agency reported.
However, in Yerevan, protesters voiced fears that Azerbaijan might be poised to embark on a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Some believed that Armenia should join the conflict.
“If you don’t fight, you lose anyway. We lost Artsakh and we are losing now. We will lose other parts of our country,” said Akop Abgaryan, 31, an engineer. “If you fight, maybe you can win.”
Abgaryan added that some of his close friends were killed in the second Karabkah war in 2020 when Azerbaijan succeeded in retaking large swathes of the disputed Armenian enclave. “I don’t feel good about the fact that my government is doing nothing now,” he said.
Another protester, Ramik Asateryan, also said people would be ready to fight: “We are all prepared to give our lives, but we don’t have any weapons or allies.”
Armenian officials have said repeatedly that there are no Armenian military units in Nagorno-Karabakh, and that Armenia will not intervene in the conflict.
The loss in Karabakh ratchets up domestic pressure on prime minister Pashinyan, who has faced stinging criticism at home for making concessions to Azerbaijan since 2020.
“We are losing our homeland, we are losing our people,” said protester Sargis Hayats, a 20-year-old musician. Pashinyan “must leave, time has shown that he cannot rule. No one gave him a mandate for Karabakh to capitulate,” he said.
“I came here today because there is still a small amount of hope that we can save our country,” said protester Alexan Yesiyan, 47, an education official. “The first thing we need to get rid of the traitors who control the levers of power in Armenia.”
In Azerbaijan’s capital, jubilant residents expressed hope the deal heralded a definitive victory and the end of the decades-long conflict. “I was very happy with this news. Finally, the war is over,” 67-year-old Rana Ahmedova told Agence France-Presse.
Late on Wednesday, Armenia’s defence ministry said Azerbaijan had fired on its positions along the border between the arch-foes. Such frontier skirmishes are frequent.
Nagorno-Karabakh and sizeable surrounding territories have been under ethnic Armenian control since the end of a separatist war in 1994, but Azerbaijan regained the territories and parts of Nagorno-Karabakh during the 2020 fighting. That ended with an armistice placing Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Again denying his country’s army was in the enclave, Pashinyan said he expected Russia’s peacekeepers to ensure Karabakh’s ethnic-Armenian residents could stay “in their homes, on their land”.
Officials in the regional capital, Stepanakert, and in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, confirmed that representatives would meet in Yevlakh, in Azerbaijan, on Thursday for negotiations. Azerbaijan, which has demanded the dissolution of the local government in Nagorno-Karabakh, said the talks would include plans for the reintegration of the region into Azerbaijan.
On Wednesday, Vladimir Putin rejected criticism that Russian peacekeepers had stood aside while Azerbaijan reignited the conflict. “Our peacekeepers are working very actively with all parties involved in the conflict,” he said, while meeting the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, in St Petersburg. “They are doing everything possible to protect the civilian population.”
The president of the European Council, Charles Michel, told Aliyev to protect the rights of ethnic Armenians in the region and “ensure full ceasefire and safe, dignified treatment by Azerbaijan of Karabakh Armenians”.
Turkey, a historic ally of predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan that views mostly Christian Armenia as one of its main regional rivals, had called the operation “justified”.
The EU and United States had been mediating talks between Baku and Yerevan in recent months aimed at securing a lasting peace deal between the two foes.
The White House said on Wednesday it was concerned by the humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, while French foreign minister Catherine Colonna warned of a risk of the crisis escalating into an all-out war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
“As for the possibility that Armenia may, in spite of itself, find itself involved … I think we need to remind the international community to be highly vigilant.”
With Agence France-Presse
