BAKU, Sep 23 (Aljazeera) - Armenian separatists have begun laying down their weapons, as the first convoy of humanitarian aid entered Nagorno-Karabakh days after a Russian-brokered ceasefire deal ended Azerbaijan’s offensive this week.
“We are in close cooperation with the Russian peacekeepers, conducting the demilitarisation” of the separatists, Azerbaijan Ministry of Defence spokesman Anar Eyvazov told reporters in Shusha on Saturday, a district on the edge of the rebel stronghold of Stepanakert.
“We have already seized weapons and ammunition,” Eyvazov said, adding that its soldiers along with Russian peacekeepers are working jointly to disarm separatist fighters in the Nagorno-Karabakh region – home to more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians. Karabakh is recognised internationally as part of Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan launched a lightning offensive on Tuesday on ethnic Armenian rebel positions in what it called an “anti-terrorist operation“. It demanded they lay down their arms and the separatist government disband.
With Armenians suffering serious shortages of food and fuel after a months-long de facto Azerbaijani blockade, an aid convoy of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) headed into Karabakh on Saturday, the first since Azerbaijan’s military operation.
The ICRC said in a later statement that the convoy had transported nearly 70 tonnes of humanitarian supplies, including wheat flour, salt and sunflower oil, along the Lachin corridor, the only highway connecting Armenia and the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh region.
An ICRC team also carried out the medical evacuation of 17 people wounded during the fighting, it said.
Separately, Russia said it had delivered more than 50 tonnes of food and other aid to Karabakh.
More than 20 other aid trucks, bearing Armenian number plates, have been lined up along a nearby roadside since July. Azerbaijan said at the time that this convoy amounted to a “provocation” and an attack on its territorial integrity.
The ethnic Armenian leadership said that the terms of their ceasefire with Azerbaijan were being implemented, with work proceeding on the delivery of humanitarian aid and evacuation of the wounded.
Work was under way to restore the electricity supply by September 24, it said in a statement.
Photo from AFP
