OF THE
TIMES
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has demanded that Armenia pays compensation for damage to infrastructure and buildings in territories re-acquired by Baku, after the recent Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.As mentioned, Russia has had - and continues to have - a big hand in quelling the conflict:
The president has accused Yerevan of destroying property before withdrawing from the areas under the terms of the armistice brokered by Moscow last week.
"We are in the center of the city of Jabrayil. There is not a single complete building, not a single one!" Aliyev explained on Monday. "Only the military part was built, the rest of the infrastructure - houses, buildings, schools - everything was destroyed."
Aliyev promised that Yerevan would be held responsible for the destroyed property "in international courts," noting that the Armenians also felled forests on their way out.
"I want to repeat again that international structures and experts will be involved, all the damage will be calculated, and we will demand compensation for 30 years," he said.
Azerbaijani Deputy Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Vugar Kerimov also joined in, accusing the Armenians of "genocide against nature" in Nagorno-Karabakh.
In the days after the agreement to retreat, videos emerged on social media of Nagorno-Karabakh residents burning their property to stop it from falling into Azeri hands.
The Russia-brokered truce between Armenia and Azerbaijan helped stop the violence in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. Its status remains unresolved but a way to 'normalization' is open, he added.
"The final status of Nagorno-Karabakh is unresolved; we agreed to maintain the existing status quo," Putin told journalists on Tuesday, speaking about the fate of the disputed region that has since September become an arena of a fierce military conflict between the two neighbors.
Stopping tragedy
The Moscow-brokered armistice helped stop the bloodshed, the Russian president said, calling it one of the most important results of the talks with the Armenian and the Azerbaijani leadership. He called the recently reignited conflict a real "tragedy" that affected many families on both sides.
"More than 4,000 people died, according to the official estimates. I believe the number of casualties is higher. Tens of thousands have been injured or maimed," Putin said.
The armistice ceded control over some areas in the disputed region to Azerbaijan, leaving a 6-kilometer long mountain pass as the only remaining route connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia proper. Still, Putin said that maintaining the balance of power in the region was just as important as putting an end to the conflict.
Preserving balance
"We believed that a balance of forces should be maintained even in the face of such serious developments," he said, adding that Russia took "every effort" that Armenia did not feel "abandoned."
He noted that the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) - a military alliance of several former Soviet states, which Russia and Armenia both belong to - could not interfere into the conflict on Yerevan's side.
"According to the international law, Nagorno-Karabakh and the adjacent areas are indisputable Azerbaijani territories," Putin said, adding that the CSTO could only intervene in case of an aggression against one of its members but "no one encroached on Armenia's territory."
Under the armistice, Russian peacekeepers will protect the remaining route linking Nagorno-Karabakh to the Armenian territory, which is also known as the Lachin corridor.
Speaking about Turkey's "open support" of Baku in the recent conflict, Putin said that, although one could give various assessments of it, Ankara could hardly be accused of violating the international law. Moscow managed to convince Azerbaijan and Turkey to limit Ankara's involvement in the truce monitoring to avoid a potentially negative reaction from Yerevan, he noted.
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Russia is losing just about everywhere and letting Turkey and jihadis into the Caucasus to create a pan-Turkish empire all the way though Central Asia.And why would Russia wish "to create a pan-Turkish empire?"
better still when someone else is doing it for them.Now you're getting us confused with IsRaHell.
Contrast the fact that the article says that his is a 'mostly ceremonial' position, yet there is this: Ceremonial positions don't control wars! Who is? I have a guess.
I guarantee they're upset because their poor troops have been getting slaughtered by those Israhell built and supplied drones supplied to AZ which AZ is posting videos all the time showing the poor Armenians getting wasted! See combat footage at reddit here: [Link]
RC