Envoys from Baku and Yerevan yesterday prepared to meet in Brussels for talks as thousands of refugees fled Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijan’s lightning takeover of the majority ethnic Armenian enclave.
An offensive by Baku’s forces last week established Azerbaijani control over the breakaway region, forcing ethnic Armenian fighters to disarm.
Yesterday’s meeting in Brussels would be the first such encounter since the offensive, but the leaders of both nations are scheduled to meet next month.
Photo: AFP
Simon Mordue, chief diplomatic adviser to European Council President Charles Michel, is to chair the talks, Michel’s spokeswoman said.
Azerbaijan and Armenia, along with EU heavyweights France and Germany, would be represented by their national security advisers.
Several days after the fighting, the first refugees arrived in Armenia on Sunday and 6,650 people have so far entered, Yerevan said on Monday.
Reporters saw the refugees crowding into a humanitarian hub set up in a theater in the city of Goris to register for transport and housing.
“We lived through terrible days,” said Anabel Ghulasyan, 41, from the village of Rev, known as Shalva in Azeri.
She arrived in Goris with her family by minibus, carrying her belongings in bags.
An explosion at a fuel depot wounded more than 200 people, said Armenian separatist authorities, which have been supplying those seeking to leave the territory with gas and diesel.
“As a result of the explosion in the fuel warehouse, the number of injured exceeds 200. The health condition of the majority is severe or extremely severe,” the region’s rights ombudsman Gegham Stepanyan wrote on social media.
“The medical capacities of [Nagorno-Karabakh] are not enough,” Stepanyan added, calling for air ambulances to be allowed to land.
An official had earlier indicated there were fatalities, without giving a toll.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars in the past three decades over Nagorno-Karabakh, a majority ethnic Armenian enclave within the internationally recognized border of Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan’s lightning operation on Tuesday last week to seize control of the territory forced the separatists to lay down their arms under the terms of a ceasefire agreed the following day.
It followed a nine-month blockade of the region by Baku that caused shortages of key supplies.
The separatists have said 200 people were killed in last week’s fighting.
Baku announced two of its troops also died when a mine hit their vehicle on Sunday.
Azerbaijani media said officials held a second round of peace talks with Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian community aimed at “reintegrating” them, but on the road heading to Armenia, more and more residents from the region appeared to be trying to get out.
At the refugee centre in Goris, Valentina Asryan, a 54-year-old from the village of Vank who fled with her grandchildren, said her brother-in-law was killed and several other people were injured by Azerbaijani fire.
“Who would have thought that the ‘Turks’ would come to this historic Armenian village? It’s incredible,” she said, referring to Azerbaijani forces.
She was being housed temporarily in a hotel in Goris and had “nowhere to go.”
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS