US calls on Azerbaijan to safeguard Armenians

BAKU:

Hungry and exhausted Armenian households jammed roads to flee houses within the defeated breakaway enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, whereas the US known as on Azerbaijan to guard civilians and let in help.

The Armenians of Karabakh – a part of Azerbaijan past Baku’s management for the reason that dissolution of the Soviet Union – started fleeing this week after their forces had been routed in a lightning navy operation by Azerbaijan’s navy.

Not less than 13,550 of the 120,000 ethnic Armenians who name Nagorno-Karabakh house arrived in Armenia on the primary day of the exodus, with tons of of vehicles and buses filled with belongings snaking down the mountain highway out of Azerbaijan.

Some fled packed into the again of open-topped vehicles, others on tractors. Grandmother of 4 Narine Shakaryan arrived in her son-in-law’s outdated automobile with 6 folks packed inside. The 77km drive had taken 24 hours, she stated. They’d no meals.

“The entire means the youngsters had been crying, they had been hungry,” Shakaryan instructed Reuters on the border, carrying her 3-year outdated granddaughter, who she stated had turn out to be in poor health through the journey.

“We left so we might keep alive, to not stay.”

Learn Azerbaijan kilos Karabakh as huge energy fears develop of spiral into warfare

As Armenians rushed to depart the Karabakh capital, often known as Stepanakert by Armenia and Khankendi by Azerbaijan, gasoline stations had been overwhelmed by panic shopping for. The authorities there stated at the least 20 folks had been killed and 290 injured in a large blaze when a gasoline storage facility blew up on Monday.

US Company for Worldwide Improvement (USAID) chief Samantha Energy, within the Armenian capital Yerevan, known as on Azerbaijan “to take care of the ceasefire and take concrete steps to guard the rights of civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

Energy, who earlier handed Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan a letter of assist from U.S. President Joe Biden, stated Azerbaijan’s use of pressure was unacceptable and that Washington was an applicable response.

She known as on Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev to stay as much as his promise to guard ethnic Armenian rights, absolutely reopen the Lachin hall that connects the area to Armenia and let in help deliveries and a global monitoring mission.

Aliyev has pledged to ensure the security of Karabakh’s Armenians however stated his iron fist had consigned the thought of the area’s independence to historical past.

‘Nowhere to go’

Ethnic Armenians who managed to get to Armenia gave harrowing accounts of fleeing demise, warfare and starvation.

Some stated they noticed many lifeless civilians – one stated truckloads. Others, some with younger kids, broke down in tears as they described a tragic odyssey of working from warfare, sleeping on the bottom and with starvation churning of their bellies.

“We took what we may and left. We don’t know the place we’re going. Now we have nowhere to go,” Petya Grigoryan, a 69-year-old driver, instructed Reuters within the border city of Goris on Sunday.

Learn extra Nagorno-Karabakh’s 120,000 Armenians will go away for Armenia, management says

Reuters was unable to independently confirm accounts of the navy operation inside Karabakh. Azerbaijan has stated it focused solely Karabakh fighters.

USAID’s Energy stated the world would be taught extra quickly in regards to the severity of situations in Karabakh and what folks had gone by there that had prompted them to depart.

Stability of Energy

The Azerbaijani victory adjustments the steadiness of energy within the South Caucasus area, a patchwork of ethnicities crisscrossed with oil and gasoline pipelines the place Russia, the US, Turkey and Iran are jostling for affect.

For the reason that breakup of the Soviet Union, Armenia had relied on a safety partnership with Russia, whereas Azerbaijan grew near Turkey, with which it shares linguistic and cultural ties.

Armenia has currently sought nearer ties with the West and blames Russia, which had peacekeepers in Karabakh however is now preoccupied with the warfare in Ukraine, for failing to guard Karabakh. Moscow denies blame and has instructed Pashinyan that he’s making a huge mistake by flirting with the US.

Aliyev hinted on Monday on the prospect of making a land hall to Turkey throughout Armenia.

Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to the US, instructed Washington to cease stoking anti-Russian sentiment in Armenia.