MOSCOW, September 28 The main task now is to ensure normal living conditions for those who decided to leave Nagorno-Karabakh, said the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov.
«Probably, it is hardly possible to talk about who is to blame, because there is no immediate direct reason for such actions, but nevertheless people express a desire to leave the territory of Karabakh. Some of them may express a desire to do this forever, some of them temporarily during the period of transformation,” Peskov said, answering a question from journalists about who is to blame and what, in his opinion, was the main reason for the exodus of Armenians from Karabakh. “The main thing here is that those who made such a decision are provided with normal living conditions; the purely humanitarian aspect of this problem is what concerns us most,” Peskov added.
The unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh, which announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan SSR 35 years ago and, after the armed conflict with Azerbaijan of 1992-1994, existed for many years as an unrecognized republic, announced the end of its existence on January 1, 2024.
In September 2020, fighting resumed in Nagorno-Karabakh. Through Moscow's mediation, the parties agreed to a ceasefire. The Armenian side lost all areas around Nagorno-Karabakh and a number of territories that were part of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region. In addition, Russian peacekeepers are stationed in the region. Armenia never recognized Karabakh, and its Prime Minister Pashinyan, in negotiations with the West, then at a press conference in Yerevan in May 2023, stated that Karabakh is part of the territory of Azerbaijan.
On September 19, 2023, Azerbaijan launched a military operation in Karabakh, one of the goals of which was the dissolution of all bodies of unrecognized Karabakh. Yerevan characterized these actions as aggression, saying that there are no Armenian units in Karabakh. A day later, through the mediation of Russian peacekeepers, an agreement on a ceasefire was reached; among the conditions of the truce, in particular, the disarmament of the Armenian formations was outlined. Afterwards, several rounds of negotiations between representatives of Karabakh and Baku took place, dedicated to the integration of the region into the republic. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that Azerbaijan has restored its territorial integrity.