Caucasus | The self-government of the captured Nagorno-Karabakh was supposed to end at the end of the year, but the separatist leader seems to have retracted his speech

Three The self-government of Nagorno-Karabakh, which broke away from Azerbaijan a decade ago, was to officially end on Monday after one year. The separatist president Samvel Šahramanja signed a decree in September ending the separatist regime on January 1, 2024, after Azerbaijan seized the region in a blitzkrieg.

In December, however, the same separatist leader seemed to eat his words. On December 22, Šahramanja announced that the decree he himself had previously signed would not be valid after all.

“There is no document that dictates the dissolution of the governing bodies of the Republic of Artsakh (separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh),” Shahramanjan said in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.

The separatist president's office told the AFP news agency that the document signed on September 26 was a “blank piece of paper” and that no document could lead to the abolition of the republic “founded by the will of the people”.

From Nagorno-Karabakh there have been two wars between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the early 1990s and in 2020. The region was again at the center of dramatic twists in September last year when Azerbaijan captured the region in a day-long conflict.

The independence dream of the ethnically Armenian separatist region, which had been kept alive for three decades, seemed to have finally collapsed overnight. The region's ethnically Armenian population of more than 100,000 people fled almost entirely to Armenia, which is now grappling with a refugee crisis.

“The picture of our beautiful garden that I saw the last time still haunts my eyes: pomegranates and persimmons glistened in the bright sun under the trees,” described the refugee from his home in Nagorno-Karabakh Suren Martirosjan To an AFP reporter.

The family of 65-year-old Martirosyan now lives as tenants with state support in a small village about 50 kilometers from the Armenian capital, Yerevan.

Martirosyan blames both the Armenian government and the Russian troops who were in the Nagorno-Karabakh region on so-called peacekeeping missions for the loss of his home region.

“Our army fought valiantly to protect our motherland”, the defeat was suffered by Russia and the Armenian government.

of the European Parliament by the mass exodus of the Armenian inhabitants of the region was practically ethnic cleansing. Azerbaijan has denied the accusation.

Nagorno-Karabakh the separatist leader's announcement of the revocation of the previous decision may remain meaningless. Nagorno-Karabakh is now completely under the control of Azerbaijan, and the Armenian population of the region has practically completely fled the region.

It has been speculated in advance that Armenia will hardly allow the separatists to continue running their self-government in exile on the Armenian side. Armenia seeks a lasting peace agreement and normalization of relations with Azerbaijan.

The cornerstone of the agreement would be the recognition of the mutual territorial integrity of the countries, which would include the recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan. In December, the two countries exchanged prisoners of war, which is considered a possible step towards normalization between the two countries.