Top Nagorno-Karabakh official sacked as blockade approaches fourth month

TBILISI, Feb 23 (Reuters) – The top of Nagorno-Karabakh’s separatist authorities, Ruben Vardanyan, was faraway from workplace on Thursday, Armenian state information company Armenpress reported, virtually three months into an Azerbaijani blockade of the enclave.

It gave no motive for Vardanyan’s dismissal, however the billionaire banker, appointed solely in November, had clashed with Armenia’s prime minister over the position of Russian peacekeepers within the area. Vardanyan had additionally been criticised by Azerbaijan.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as a part of Azerbaijan, however its 120,000 inhabitants are predominantly ethnic Armenians and it broke away from Baku in a conflict within the early Nineties.

Azerbaijan regained a lot of its misplaced territory in a six-week battle in 2020 by which hundreds of individuals had been killed. The combating was ended by a Russia-brokered truce and the dispatch of Russian peacekeepers to the area.

Final December, Azerbaijani civilians figuring out themselves as environmental activists started blocking the Lachin hall, the one remaining highway connecting the territory to Armenia.

Separatist officers have repeatedly warned of a humanitarian catastrophe except the highway is opened, and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has repeatedly criticised Russia for not doing extra to carry the blockade.

In January, Vardayan mentioned that “futile” criticism of Moscow’s peacekeepers solely helped Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan, for its half, has repeatedly described Vardanyan as an impediment to peace talks.

On the latest Munich Safety Convention, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev mentioned Baku was prepared to talk to Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenian inhabitants, offered Vardanyan depart the enclave.

Pashinyan mentioned earlier this month that he had despatched Baku a draft of a peace settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

In an announcement asserting Vardanyan’s dismissal, Nagorno-Karabakh’s ‘president’, Arayik Harutyunyan, praised the minister’s contribution to the territory’s authorities with out giving a motive for the sacking.

He named Prosecutor Basic Gurgen Nersisyan as Vardanyan’s substitute.

Vardanyan had beforehand been a Russian citizen. President Vladimir Putin granted Vardanyan’s request to be stripped of his Russian passport in a decree revealed in December.

Reporting by Reuters
Enhancing by Gareth Jones

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