BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 27. The reassertion of Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh was inevitable the moment Azerbaijan won the war in November 2020, Michael Doran, an American analyst of the international politics of the Middle East, senior fellow and director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at Hudson Institute, wrote on his page on X (Twitter), Trend reports.
"That reassertion is just and right, but my moral assessment is incidental to the main point: the inevitability of the reassertion. International law and, more importantly, the major players [the US, Russia, Türkiye] regard Karabakh as Azerbaijani. It was only a matter of time before Baku took control," he noted.
Responding to allegations made by an Iranian-American columnist and editor, Sohrab Ahmari, who claimed that Azerbaijan is purportedly displacing Armenians from Karabakh through "ethnic cleansing", Michael Doran pointed out that there is no evidence of that.
"This is a voluntary exodus of Armenians, not ethnic cleansing. Ethnic cleansing is what the Armenians conducted in the First Karabakh War, killing children and old people," he added.
Meanwhile, in order to ensure the provisions of the Trilateral Statement, suppression of large-scale provocations in Azerbaijan's Karabakh economic region, disarmament, and withdrawal of Armenian armed forces formations from the territories of Azerbaijan, localized anti-terrorist activities were carried out in the region.
Taking into account the appeal of the representatives of the Armenian population of Karabakh through the Russian peacekeeping contingent, an agreement was reached on September 20, 2023, at 13:00 (GMT+4) to cease anti-terrorist activities.
Later, at the invitation of the Administration of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ramin Mammadov, responsible for contacts with the Armenian residents of Karabakh, met with representatives of the Armenian residents of Karabakh on September 21, 2023, in Yevlakh.
In the context of discussing social and humanitarian issues, the representatives of the Armenian residents of Azerbaijan's Karabakh region informed that there is a special need for fuel. At the same time, they asked for humanitarian assistance in the form of foodstuffs.
As a result of the meeting, their request was taken seriously. Until now, Azerbaijan has already supplied fuel for the heating systems of kindergartens and schools, as well as the emergency medical service and fire department, and provided humanitarian support for Karabakh residents.