INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh said on Thursday they were dissolving the breakaway statelet they had defended for three decades, where
more than half the population has fled since Azerbaijan launched a lightning offensive last week.In a statement, they said their
self-declared Republic of Artsakh would &cease to exist& by Jan
1, in what amounted to a formal capitulation to Azerbaijan.For Azerbaijan and its president, Ilham Aliyev, the outcome is a triumphant
restoration of sovereignty over an area that is internationally recognised as part of its territory but whose ethnic Armenian majority won
de facto independence in a war in the 1990s, Reuters reported.For Armenians, it is a defeat and a national tragedy.Some 70,500 people had
crossed into Armenia by early Thursday afternoon, Russia&s RIA news agency reported, out of an estimated population of 120,000.&Analysis of
the situation shows that in the coming days there will be no Armenians left in Nagorno-Karabakh,& Interfax news agency quoted Armenian Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinyan as saying
&This is an act of ethnic cleansing.&Azerbaijan denies that accusation, saying it is not forcing people to leave and that it will peacefully
reintegrate the Karabakh region and guarantee the civic rights of the ethnic Armenians.Karabakh Armenians say they do not trust that
promise, mindful of a long history of bloodshed between the two sides including two wars since the break-up of the Soviet Union
For days they have fled en masse down the snaking mountain road through Azerbaijan that connects Karabakh to Armenia.Azerbaijan&s ambassador
to London, Elin Suleymanov, told Reuters in an interview that Baku did not want a mass exodus from Karabakh and was not encouraging people
to leave.He said Azerbaijan had not yet had a chance to prove what he said was its sincere commitment to provide secure and better living
conditions for those ethnic Armenians who choose to stay.The Kremlin said on Thursday it was closely monitoring the humanitarian situation
in Karabakh and said Russian peacekeepers in the region were providing assistance to residents
It said Russian President Vladimir Putin had no plans to visit Armenia.Western governments have also expressed alarm over the humanitarian
crisis and demanded access for international observers to monitor Azerbaijan&s treatment of the local population.Samantha Power, head of the
Agency for International Development (USAID), said this week she had heard &very troubling reports of violence against civilians&.Azerbaijan
said Aliyev had told her at a meeting on Wednesday that the rights of ethnic Armenians would be protected by law, like those of other
minorities.&The Azerbaijani president noted that the civilian population had not been harmed during the anti-terrorist measures, and only
illegal Armenian armed formations and military facilities had been targeted,& a statement said.Aliyev&s office said on Thursday he was
visiting Jabrayil, a city on the southern edge of Karabakh that was destroyed by Armenian forces in the 1990s, which Azerbaijan recaptured
in 2020 and is now rebuilding.While saying he had no quarrel with ordinary Karabakh Armenians, Aliyev last week described their leaders as a
&criminal junta& that would be brought to justice.A former head of Karabakh&s government, Ruben Vardanyan, was arrested on Wednesday as he
tried to cross into Armenia
Azerbaijan&s state security service said on Thursday he was being charged with financing terrorism and with illegally crossing the
Azerbaijani border last year.David Babayan, an adviser to the Karabakh leadership, said in a statement he was voluntarily giving himself up
to the Azerbaijani authorities.Mass displacements have been a feature of the Karabakh conflict since it broke out in the late 1980s as the
Soviet Union headed towards collapse.Between 1988 and 1994 about 500,000 Azerbaijanis from Karabakh and the areas around it were expelled
from their homes, while the conflict prompted 350,000 Armenians to leave Azerbaijan and 186,000 Azerbaijanis to leave Armenia, according to
&Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War&, a 2003 book by Caucasus scholar and analyst Thomas de Waal.Many of the
Armenians escaping this week in heavily laden cars, trucks, buses and even tractors said they were hungry and fearful.&This is one of the
darkest pages of Armenian history,& said Father David, a 33-year-old Armenian priest who came to the border to provide spiritual support for
&The whole of Armenian history is full of hardships.&The post Karabakh Armenians dissolve breakaway govt in capitulation to Azerbaijan first
