Yerevan: Azerbaijan said it was delivering food and other humanitarian aid to Nagorno-Karabakh on Friday, two days after the region’s ethnic Armenian separatist government called a cease-fire in a short but intense fight with Azerbaijani forces.
Nagorno-Karabakh’s 120,000 people have suffered severe shortages of food and medicine since late last year when a blockade began of the road connecting the region to Armenia. Improving the supply of food and other basic needs will be a key issue in building stability in the region, which is within Azerbaijan but had been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces since 1994.
Azerbaijan on Tuesday launched intense fire on Armenian positions in what it called an “anti-terrorist operation,” demanding that the Armenians lay down their arms and the separatist government disband. A day later, Nagorno-Karabakh authorities agreed to the military demands, but talks on how the region will be reintegrated into Azerbaijan have not reached final agreement.
Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan on Friday said that there was no immediate need for the region’s ethnic Armenians to leave their homes.