[News] Armenia and Azerbaijan agree to a ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

[G h o s t l y.]

The agreement was reached after a discussion of almost 10 hours sponsored by Russia and establishes a cessation of fighting for "humanitarian" reasons.


 

Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed this morning to a ceasefire in the conflict that faces them over control of the Nagorno Karabakh enclave and that has left hundreds - perhaps thousands - of dead since the start of hostilities on September 27.
 

The agreement was reached after a discussion of almost 10 hours sponsored by Russia and establishes a cessation of the fighting for "humanitarian" reasons that should allow an exchange of prisoners and the recovery of the countless corpses that have been lying in no man's land.

The pact includes 4 sections including the continuation of the dialogue under the auspices of the so-called Minsk Group (led by Russia, the United States and France) to achieve a "peaceful agreement" although it maintains enormous ambiguity in this regard.
 

The dialogue in Moscow was preceded by a defiant speech by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, in which he said he did not intend to make any "concessions".
 

"For 30 years there were negotiations ... and they did not return an inch of the occupied territories to us. No one forced the aggressor to leave our land and comply with the UN resolutions. Now the conflict is decided by military means. politics will come later ", declared the president.

Aliyev made reference to the 4 resolutions of the United Nations Security Council approved in 1993 that require the withdrawal of Armenian forces from the 7 Azerbaijani regions located around the Nagorno Karabakh enclave that were captured during the first war that ravaged this territory until 1994.
 

The occupation of these areas, which represent almost 15 percent of the total territory of Azerbaijan and where hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis lived who were expelled from their po[CENSORED]tions, has become the central element of the failed dialogue during all these decades since Stepanakert and Yerevan consider that at least two of them, Kalbajar and Lachin - which allow Nagorno Karabakh to connect with Armenia - are essential for their defense.
 

Alihev issued a kind of ultimatum, adding that he was giving Armenia the "last chance to leave our territory peacefully. Be that as it may, we will recover those territories."