Armenian authorities in Karabakh said two Armenian soldiers were killed and 19 others were wounded in the August 3 attack by Azerbaijani forces that prompted calls from the international community for de-escalation in the volatile region.
Azerbaijani officials said that the country had taken retributive action for the killing of an Azerbaijani serviceman by Armenians.
In the interview to national television Aliyev said that hundreds of Armenian soldiers were withdrawn from Karabakh after Azerbaijan’s military operation on August 3. He stressed that Azerbaijan wants a full withdrawal of Armenian armed units from Karabakh. “It is Armenia’s commitment. It is reflected in the act of surrender signed by Armenia on November 10, 2020.”
“Armenians living in Karabakh should take the right steps. They must understand that their future depends on their integration into Azerbaijani society. We live in reality. From the geographical, economic, and historical points of view Karabakh is an inseparable part of Azerbaijan,” the Azeri president told AzTV.
“Because the Armenians living in Karabakh will not have any status, independence, or advantages. They will live like all citizens of Azerbaijan. Their rights will be protected the way the rights of Azerbaijani citizens and peoples living [in Azerbaijan] are protected,” Aliyev said.
Speaking at a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan on August 4, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian stressed that there was no serviceman of the Republic of Armenia in the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh region.
There are about 2,000 Russian peacekeepers are in the region.
In his interview Aliyev also confirmed that the few remaining Armenian residents of the town of Lachin and the villages of Sus and Zabux (Aghavno) situated along the Lachin corridor will leave by the end of the month as a new route for the corridor linking Karabakh with Armenia is due to be put into use.
He said that under the Geneva conventions Armenian resettlers who lived in the villages after their occupation by ethnic Armenian forces in the early 1990s did so illegally and, therefore, he warned, those of them who will choose to stay might, in fact, be treated like war criminals.
MP/PR
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