‘FORCED HIM’

Azerbaijan Says Deal to End Fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh Is ‘Capitulation’ by Armenia

Armenia’s prime minister insisted “we will never consider ourselves defeated” while announcing the agreement.

The prime minister of Armenia has said he signed a deal to end active military conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, reaching an agreement with Azerbaijan and Russia after six weeks of escalated fighting. The Guardian reports Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said he decided after “deep analyses of the combat situation” early Tuesday morning, less than 24 hours after Azeri officials said they had seized a dozen more predominantly ethnic Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh settlements and proclaimed victory over the disputed region’s second-largest city. “This is not a victory but there is not defeat until you consider yourself defeated,” Pashinyan said. “We will never consider ourselves defeated.”

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev put the ceasefire in far different terms, saying Pashinyan was “forced” to “sign this document.” “This is essentially a capitulation,” he said. Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a statement on the conflict Tuesday announcing that Russian peacekeepers would be deployed to the region and saying he hopes the deal will “set up necessary conditions for long-lasting and full-scale settlement of the crisis over Nagorno-Karabakh.”