Español
Francés
English
The residents of the villages of Nagorno-Karabakh set fire to their homes on Saturday before fleeing to Armenia.
The inhabitants decided to burn their houses before Azerbaijan regains control of some territories in this enclave. Armenia has estimated that more than 2,300 of its soldiers have died during the 44 days of war.
"It is the last day for us here. Tomorrow the Azeri soldiers will come", said a soldier from the village of Sharkhtar in the district of Kalbajar who will be handed over to Baku, collected by Armenian means.
The country's National Security Agency revealed on Saturday that the Armenian executive had foiled an assassination attempt against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and the takeover of power by a group of former officials.
According to the AFP news agency, an opposition leader was arrested in Armenia, accused of fomenting a plot to assassinate the prime minister and take power, although his lawyer denounced "persecution" following the peace agreement signed for Nagorno-Karabakh.
Artur Vanetsian, leader of the opposition "Patria" (centre-right) party, was arrested on Saturday after being summoned to the headquarters of the secret services in Yerevan, his lawyer, Lusine Sahakian, said.
"The authorities are trying to silence the opposition and even accuse (Artur Vanetsian) of conspiracy to usurp power and to kill Nikol Pashinian", denounced the lawyer Lusine Sahakian. "It is a shameful persecution of the opposition," she added.
On Monday Pashinian ruled out resignation due to the agreement he signed with Azerbaijan to stop the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, stating that, despite the protests, his aim at the moment is to restore stability to his country.
"There is only one item on my agenda: ensuring stability in my country. There is no other issue," he said during a telematic press conference to the national media, after being asked about the possibility of his resignation, as the opposition has been asking for days on the streets of Yerevan.
The head of the Armenian government, however, once again accepted responsibility for the defeat in Nagorno-Karabakh.
"I understand that I must face the judgment of my people. But in this case the people must know all the circumstances, they must talk to the military, to the opposition, to the government," he said.
In recent days the streets of Armenian cities have been filled with demonstrators calling for the resignation of the Armenian prime minister, after he signed an agreement to end the war in Artsaj. Despite martial law, which prohibits public gatherings, Freedom Square in the capital Yerevan was filled with people, including opposition legislators and politicians from parliamentary and non-parliamentary parties.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have exchanged bodies of those killed during the last weeks of armed conflict, in the framework of the ceasefire agreement, which includes the deployment of Russian troops.
Azerbaijan has handed over an unspecified number of dead combatants in the vicinity of the strategic city of Shusha, now under Azeri control, according to the Ministry of Defence. In exchange, Armenia has returned the bodies of six Azeri soldiers, an exchange agreed in the peace agreement.
Furthermore, the Armenian health ministry has counted the number of Armenian soldiers who have died during the more than forty days of war as 2,317, some of whom remain unidentified. In addition, it has counted the deaths of 50 Armenian civilians.
For its part, Azerbaijan has not reported its military losses and has only published the deaths of 93 civilians in the Armenian bombings.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who has a role as arbitrator, being a member of the Minsk Group, although he has always been more inclined towards Yerevan, stated this Sunday that the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh left over 4,000 dead and 8,000 wounded, as well as tens of thousands of refugees.
