Nagorno-Karabakh

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev said France would be to blame for any new conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, following Paris’ promise to deliver military equipment to Armenia last week.

Azeri President Aliyev has declined to meet Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan in Spain as part of EU-brokered talks. The two were to discuss the fate of Nagorno-Karabakh. Baku called French and EU bias deal-breakers.

The Armenian parliament on Tuesday voted to join the International Criminal Court, which earlier this year indicted Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes connected to the deportation of children from Ukraine.

As few as 50 to 1,000 ethnic Armenians are reported to be left in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan after the exodus of recent days saw more than 100,000 flee, the first UN mission to the region in 30 years reported on Monday.

The leader of the self-declared Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh has said it will cease to exist in the new year. Samvel Shahramanyan announced on Thursday that he had signed an order dissolving all state institutions from 1 January. The region, which had been controlled by Armenians for three decades, was seized by Azerbaijan last week. More than half of its majority ethnic Armenian population have now fled, according to officials.

The United States and Germany added to calls for international observers to be allowed into the Nagorno-Karabakh region, as Azerbaijan said Wednesday that 192 of its soldiers were killed in an operation to retake the area from ethnic Armenian separatists.

An UN-appointed independent human rights expert on Wednesday called on Azerbaijan to “guarantee the rights of ethnic Armenians” in the Karabakh region and ensure that civilians who remain “are respected and protected in line with its international obligations.”

The EU and US have urged Azerbaijan to give aid groups more access to ethnic Armenians, as tens of thousands flee the conflict zone.

Representatives for ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh met Thursday with the Azerbaijan government to discuss the future of the breakaway region. The talks in Yevlakh, Azerbaijan come a day after local fighters in Nagorno-Karabakh agreed to lay down their arms to end an offensive by Azerbaijan’s forces. The U.N. Security Council is due to hold its own talks Thursday about the situation.

Azerbaijan on Tuesday began what it called an "anti-terrorist operation" targeting Armenian military positions in the Nagorno-Karabakh region and officials in the area reported heavy artillery firing around its capital.