Azerbaijan seizes arms from Nagorno-Karabakh rebels

Shusha, Azerbaijan – AFP

Azerbaijan forces tightened their grip on the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh on Saturday as international concern mounted over the plight of ethnic Armenian civilians trapped there.

As the first Red Cross aid convoy crossed into the disputed enclave since Azerbaijan launched this week’s lightning offensive, government forces said rebel “demilitarisation” had begun.

Moscow announced on Friday that ethnic Armenian separatist fighters had begun to surrender weapons under a Russian-mediated agreement, and on Saturday the Azerbaijan forces were keen to show off a captured rebel arsenal.

“We are in close cooperation with the Russian peacekeepers who are conducting the demilitarisation” and giving “support to civilians”, Azerbaijani military spokesman Colonel Anar Eyvazov said in the Shusha district, outside the regional capital Stepanakert.

Azerbaijani forces now control the area and the town of Shusha appears deserted. Troops have mortar positions on high ground overlooking the approach to Stepanakert, AFP reporters saw.

Government forces displayed an arsenal of infantry weapons, including sniper rifles, hundreds of Kalashnikov rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and four tanks painted with cross insignia, that they said they had seized from the separatists.

“We have more like that in the forest, but we can’t bring them all here,” said Lieutenant General Mais Barkhudarov, commander of Azerbaijan’s 2nd Army Corps.

To the southwest, the so-called Lachin Corridor that once connected the breakaway region to Armenia is also controlled by government forces, which have mounted a de facto blockade for the past nine months.

Food convoy

A humanitarian convoy of the International Committee of the Red Cross was nevertheless able to cross into the area on Saturday — the first since fighting erupted earlier this week.

On the Armenian side of the border, at the Kornidzor checkpoint, local ICRC spokesman Zara Amatuni told AFP that 70 metric tonnes of food and humanitarian aid “have passed through the Lachin Corridor”.

If the ceasefire holds it could mark the end of a conflict between Caucasus rivals Armenia and Azerbaijan that has raged, off and on, through the three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Russia said on Saturday that an Azerbaijani soldier was “wounded during an exchange of fire”, adding that is was conducting an investigation into the incident with Baku and separatist officials.

On Friday, Moscow confirmed that the rebels had surrendered their first batch of weapons and the process is expected to continue through the weekend, as international bodies — including the German government — expressed concern for civilians.