GORIS, Armenia (Reuters) – Azerbaijan is considering amnesty for Armenian fighters from Nagorno-Karabakh who lay down their arms, although some of them have said they will continue their fight, an Azerbaijani presidential adviser told Reuters .
Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh said Thursday they needed security guarantees before surrendering their weapons after Azerbaijan said it had regained control of the breakaway region following a 24-hour military operation .
Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to Azerbaijan’s president, told Reuters that Baku was considering an amnesty for Nagorno-Karabakh fighters who surrender their weapons.
“Even when it comes to ex-servicemen and combatants, if they can be classified in that way, and even for them, we are looking at an amnesty or hinting at an amnesty,” he said.
The rights of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians will be respected within the framework of their integration into Azerbaijan, he said, adding that three shipments of humanitarian aid would be delivered to the region on Friday.
David Babayan, advisor to the head of the Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh Samvel Shahramanian, told Reuters that no agreement had yet been reached with Baku.
“These questions still need to be resolved,” he said. “There are no concrete results yet.”
However, he declared that an agreement had been reached so that a humanitarian convoy could travel to Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia, via the Lachin corridor, this Friday.
“The situation is very difficult: people are hungry, there is no electricity, no fuel – we have a lot of refugees,” said David Babayan.
Seven Russian peacekeeping vehicles crossed an Armenian checkpoint towards Nagorno-Karabakh on Friday, according to a Reuters journalist present on the scene.
Separatist troops in the region, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but until now partly administered by dissident Armenian authorities, were forced to capitulate in the face of the offensive launched by Baku this week.
Hikmet Hajiyev said that some Armenian fighters, however, refused to give up their weapons.
“Currently, we see that some groups in the army and some officers have publicly declared that they will not accept our conditions and will continue to resist,” he added.
“We are also seeing some minor groups going into the forest,” he said. “But we don’t think this is the biggest challenge, nor the biggest security issue. Of course, it will bring some challenges and difficulties, but not on this scale.”
Azerbaijan will ensure that civilians can safely travel in their own vehicles along the road from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, Hikmet Hajiyev said.
For his part, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said he hoped Armenians could stay in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the RIA news agency reported on Friday.
Nagorno-Karabakh is home to a population of 120,000 Christian Armenians who fear being persecuted despite the desire for integration displayed by Azerbaijan, whose inhabitants are predominantly Muslim.
(Report by Roman Churikov; French version by Diana Mandiá, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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