KORNIDZOR, Armenia—Armenia prepared Monday to welcome a new flood of Nagorno-Karabakh refugees while the leaders of Azerbaijan and ally Turkey were set to hold a celebratory summit marking Baku’s victory over the rebel enclave.
And as Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan blamed Russia for last week’s events, more protests were planned in Yerevan over his handling of the crisis.
According to the Armenian government, by Sunday evening 377 “forcefully displaced persons” had crossed from Azerbaijan.
Most of the refugees seen by AFP were women and children, including some from Eghtsahogh, where people took shelter around a Russian peacekeeping base after their village allegedly came under Azerbaijani shelling.
“Yesterday, we had to put down our rifles. So we left,” a man in his thirties from the village of Mets Shen told AFP as a first group of a few dozen people crossed the border and registered with Armenian officials in Kornidzor.
“We had 15 minutes to pack everything up,” he said, regretting having left behind his livestock and the grave of his three-year-old daughter.
“I didn’t tell her goodbye. I hope to go back.”
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev intended to cement his victory by flying to his country’s western exclave of Nakhichevan for talks Monday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his most important regional ally.
Turkey supplied Baku with a fleet of combat drones that helped Azerbaijan claw back a chunk of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory in a six-week war three years ago.
The two leaders are scheduled to hold a groundbreaking ceremony for a new natural gas pipeline and open a modernized Azerbaijani military complex, a show of Turkish force contrasting sharply with Russia’s apparent withdrawal from the region.
Armenia’s premier Nikhol Pashinyan on Sunday sought to deflect blame onto long-standing ally Russia, signalling a breakdown in the countries’ security pact.
In nationally televised comments, the Armenian leader said the security agreements between the two countries had proved “insufficient” to protect the country, suggesting that he would seek new alliances.
Armenia is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization — a Russian-dominated group comprising six post-Soviet states that had pledged to protect each other if attacked.
But Russia, bogged down in its own war in Ukraine, refused to come to Armenia’s assistance in the latest Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, arguing that Yerevan itself had recognised the disputed region as part of Azerbaijan.
Now, Russian peacekeepers are helping Azerbaijan disarm the Karabakh rebels.
Pashinyan also said Armenia should ratify the treaty which established the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the Ukraine war.
But he is under pressure at home from thousands of Nagorno-Karabakh supporters who have been rallying and blocking roads in Yerevan since Wednesday’s ceasefire deal.