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RIGA, Latvia — At least 20 Armenians waiting for gasoline to flee the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh were killed and nearly 300 more were injured in an explosion at a fuel depot on Monday, according to local officials, as senior U.S. officials visited Armenia and pledged humanitarian support to deal with a flood of refugees that began Sunday ahead of an imminent takeover by Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan recaptured most of Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous area that is internationally recognized as its territory, during a brief war in 2020 that ended decades of Armenian occupation and control of the region. A truce hastily brokered by Russia helped end the fighting but left tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians living in the region, especially in the capital city, Stepanakert, without a long-term plan, but ostensibly under the protection of Russian peacekeepers.
A military offensive by Azerbaijan last week forced the self-declared government of Nagorno-Karabakh, which Armenians call Artsakh, to capitulate and agree to dismantle its armed forces. Warnings by local authorities that the advancing Azerbaijani forces would engage in “ethnic cleansing” have terrified residents and spurred thousands of people to evacuate to Armenia.
Russia last week again claimed to broker a cease-fire, but events in recent days demonstrated a stunning failure by Moscow to fulfill its peacekeeping role. Moscow was unable to prevent the military operation by Azerbaijan, to protect the Armenians living in the region or to enforce the terms of the 2020 cease-fire, which called for maintaining a highway that connects Stepanakert and Armenia. The highway, known as the Lachin Corridor, has been blocked for nearly a year and closed entirely since mid-June.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov bristled on Monday at suggestions that Russian peacekeepers had failed in their mission. “We understand the emotional intensity of the moment, but we categorically disagree with the attempt to put the responsibility on the Russian side, and especially on the Russian peacekeepers, who are showing real heroism, performing their functions in accordance with the mandate that is in place,” Peskov said.
He insisted that “Armenia is a nation close to us” and pledged continued dialogue with Yerevan.
But other nations appeared to be bracing for a humanitarian disaster.
More than 6,650 Armenians have left Nagorno-Karabakh since Sunday, according to Armenian officials, and thousands more want to leave. Residents are searching desperately for fuel and roads are choked.
Refugees fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh arrive in Armenia
Two senior U.S. officials — Samantha Power, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, and Yuri Kim, acting assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs — met Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Yerevan on Monday.
Pashinyan warned Power that ethnic cleansing of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh “is happening right now, and it is a very tragic fact.”
“We tried to inform the international community that this ethnic cleansing was going to happen, but unfortunately we failed to prevent it,” he said.
The U.S. visit comes as Pashinyan pivots Yerevan’s foreign policy from Russia toward the West, amid anger in Armenia that Russia — long Armenia’s main security partner — failed to prevent last week’s renewed attacks or to effectively halt Azerbaijan’s nine-month blockade of the Lachin Corridor, which led to a crisis, including food shortages.
Baku’s success in its military operation last week marked a sweeping change in a strategic and fragile South Caucasus region, traversed by crucial oil and gas pipelines, where Russia, Turkey and the West all jostle for influence and leverage.
Azerbaijan and Armenia have fought two wars over Nagorno-Karabakh, the first in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Armenia took control of Nagorno-Karabakh and several other regions of Azerbaijan, displacing more than half a million Azerbaijanis in a humiliating defeat for Baku. In the 44-day war in 2020, Azerbaijan reclaimed most of the territory it had lost.
Moscow and Yerevan have engaged in mutual recriminations since last week’s military action, with Russian officials claiming that Pashinyan was to blame after conceding earlier this year that Nagorno-Karabakh was part of Azerbaijan.
In a televised address Sunday, Pashinyan attacked “the security systems and the allies we have relied on for many years,” in a sharp criticism of Russia and the Moscow-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization, a regional security bloc that declined to intervene when hostilities broke out in 2020 and briefly last year.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, explained
Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Monday accused Pashinyan of “unacceptable attacks on Russia,” claiming they were “inspired by the West” and were destructive for Armenia and its alliance with Russia.
Moscow was deeply irritated by a U.S.-Armenia military training exercise that ended last week, and by Pashinyan’s recent announcement that Armenia would join the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court. The court, which is located in The Hague, last year indicted Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes over the forced deportation of Ukrainian children during Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Power said the purpose of her visit Monday was to “reiterate the U.S.’s strong support [and] partnership with Armenia and to speak directly with those impacted by the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh,” in a post on social media after landing in Yerevan.
In her meeting with Pashinyan, she spoke of Washington’s deep commitment “to the sovereignty, territorial integrity and democracy of Armenia,” signaling Washington’s support for Armenia as it faces a massive influx of displaced people, and the final loss of Nagorno-Karabakh, a region that has immense political, cultural and emotional significance to Armenians.
“But during this visit, of course, we are focused on the specific crisis, the humanitarian needs of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh,” Power added, stating that the United States would direct resources to help the government provide refuge and support for those leaving the area, and “also to encourage other countries to do the same.”
Power also said the United States would work with Armenia and Azerbaijan to “achieve lasting peace between the countries, also considering the deep economic benefits and stability it will provide for the Armenian people.” Such a peace has long proven elusive between the two countries, which consider each other to be sworn, mortal enemies.
Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev are due to meet for talks in Granada, Spain, on Oct. 5.
Aliyev’s triumphal claims of victory last week and his boasts that his country restored its territorial integrity with an “iron fist” have left the roughly 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh fearful of genocide once Baku takes control.
Analysts have warned that few Armenians are likely to stay in Nagorno-Karabakh under Baku’s governance.
After last week’s military success, Aliyev is moving swiftly to impose his terms, including the disarming of Nagorno-Karabakh’s military. He also announced last week that Azerbaijani government agencies would take control and that local Armenians would be reintegrated as citizens of Azerbaijan, in what he claimed would become a “paradise.”
Azerbaijan says agreement reached to halt fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh
For days, furious citizens in Yerevan have protested against Russia and Pashinyan’s government over what they see as the betrayal of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. At least 142 demonstrators were detained by police, according to Armenian media.
Pashinyan initially claimed there was “no direct threat” to the Armenian population of Nagorno- Karabakh but in a televised address Sunday he said there was a risk of ethnic cleansing.
“If real conditions for Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians to live in their homes and effective mechanisms of protection from ethnic cleansing are not created, the chances that the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians will see leaving their homeland as the only way to save their lives and identity is greatly increased,” he said.
He called on the international community to set up meaningful guarantees for the population’s security, “but if these efforts do not give concrete results, the government will welcome our sisters and brothers of Nagorno-Karabakh to the Republic of Armenia with all care.”
Azerbaijani representatives met for a second time Monday with members of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh government about the region’s humanitarian needs, including energy and water supplies and the search for those missing and killed in last week’s fighting, according to Armenian media.
Despite the warnings of ethnic cleansing, the government of Nagorno-Karabakh called on residents not to panic and to delay plans to depart, because of long lines for gasoline and severe traffic on the road to the nearest Armenian city, Goris.
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