Caucasus (bbabo.net), - The decree on the dissolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) was the only guarantee of the safe withdrawal of the Armenian population from Nagorno-Karabakh. The former head of the unrecognized republic Samvel Shahramanyan stated this in an interview published the day before, on March 27, with the French newspaper Le Figaro.

According to him, immediately after the September aggression of Azerbaijan in September 2023, “we, realizing that the forces were unequal, established contact with the Azerbaijani side in order to keep the civilian population away from the fighting.”

“After twelve hours of negotiations, we managed to end the fighting. The very next day, citizens of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh - Ed.), fearing for their lives, asked for evacuation to Armenia. So we began the second stage of negotiations. Baku proposed that the National Assembly (of Nagorno-Karabakh) declare that “the people of Artsakh are renouncing their rights, sovereignty and symbols,” Shahramanyan said about how his decree on the dissolution of government institutions and the abolition of the NKR was signed.

According to him, for this document to be valid, the Karabakh parliament had to approve it by voting.

“Then I made a counter proposal: the President of Artsakh should announce dissolution on January 1. This was a guarantee of relatively safe evacuation. “I understood perfectly well that this document was illegitimate and unconstitutional, since it had to be ratified by the legal structures of the Republic of Artsakh, but this was the only way to save our compatriots,” argued Shahramanyan.

Let us recall that on September 19, 2023, Azerbaijan announced an “anti-terrorist operation” in Nagorno-Karabakh. During the day of fighting, the Karabakh side lost about two hundred people killed and more than 400 wounded, several thousand civilians were evacuated from the battle zone, accompanied by Russian peacekeepers. More than one hundred thousand Karabakh Armenians then rushed along the Lachin corridor towards Armenia. Azerbaijan lost more than 200 soldiers and officers killed and over 500 wounded. The Russian peacekeeping contingent also suffered losses - six Russian servicemen were killed.

As a result of the “one-day war,” the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army agreed to lay down its arms and disband. On September 28, President of Nagorno-Karabakh Samvel Shahramanyan issued a decree on the dissolution of government agencies and the termination of the existence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (Republic of Artsakh) from January 1, 2024.

bbabo.Net