Pashinyan assures that ceasefire in Karabakh is holding
YEREVAN, September 21./ARKA/. The ceasefire in Nagorno- Karabakh is holding and reports about mass casualties among the population do not correspond to reality, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said today.
"Since the establishment of the ceasefire (at 13,00 on September 21), at least according to our information, the Karabakh Defense Army units continue to remain in the positions where they were at the time of the ceasefire. The same, respectively, applies to the Azerbaijani armed forces, and according to our information, unfortunately, today there was one ceasefire breach incident near Stepanakert," Pashinyan said in a live broadcast on Thursday.
He noted that certain ceasefire violations happen. "Why am I reporting this? Because there was information that Azerbaijani troops are in Stepanakert and so on; there is nothing like that. There are problems with communication, as far as I am aware from my colleagues from Nagorno-Karabakh, there are problems with roads towards Martuni and Martakert, but in general the situation is stable," he said.
On September 19 Azerbaijan launched an "anti-terror" operation in the region demanding that Karabakh's forces raise a white flag, disband their armed forces and dissolve their "illegal regime".
After 24-hour fierce fighting the ethnic Armenian authorities in Stepanakert gave in. Under the terms of the truce, outlined by Azerbaijan and the command of the Russian peacekeeping contingent on the ground, Karabakh armed forces must commit to being completely disbanded as well as disarmed.
According to the Nagorno-Karabakh human rights defender’s office, more than 10 thousand people have been evacuated from the communities seized by Azerbaijanis, several thousand cannot find their missing relatives -women, children and elderly people.
As of 21:30 September 20, the number of casualties stood at 200, including children, the number of wounded at more than 400.
Azerbaijani officials and Karabakh's Armenian representatives had the first meeting today for "re-integration" talks in the Azerbaijani town of Yevlakh. -0-
