Nagorno-Karabakh updates: Hundreds rally in Armenian capital after truce

French President Emmanuel Macron has told Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in a phone call that the ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh must be respected.

The president also said that guarantees must be provided on the rights and safety of the population of the Nagorno-Karabakh region in respect of international law, the French presidency said in a statement.

At least 200 people have been killed in Karabakh as a result of the Azerbaijani military offensive and more than 400 have been wounded, a separatist Armenian human rights official in the breakaway region has said.

Demonstrators threw bottles and stones at police in the Armenian capital as they protested the government’s handling of the events in Nagorno-Karabakh, AFP news agency reported.

The police used stun grenades, arrested protesters and warned they would use “special measures” if the clashes in front of the entrance to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s office continued.

Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed the ceasefire agreement, the Kremlin has said.

In a statement giving an account of a phone call between Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the Kremlin said Putin “noted with satisfaction that it was possible to overcome the acute phase of the conflict, and welcomed the agreement … on a complete cessation of hostilities and the holding of negotiations on September 21”.

The Kremlin had already said it considered Baku’s lightning offensive an internal action on its own sovereign territory, and had dismissed allegations from Armenia, Moscow’s ally, that Russian peacekeepers had done too little to protect Karabakh’s Armenian population.

Russian peacekeepers will mediate upcoming talks between Armenian separatists and Azerbaijan, President Putin has announced.

“These negotiations will be held with the mediation of the leadership of the Russian peacekeeping contingent,” the Kremlin said in a readout of a telephone call between Putin and Armenian leader Nikol Pashinyan.

After a sleepless night spent monitoring news from Nagorno-Karabakh and watching videos of shelled buildings and weeping women, Tigran says he knows who the main culprit is.

The ethnic Armenian man, who moved to Russia in 2001, blames President Vladimir Putin for “doing nothing” about the flare-up between Azerbaijan and the breakaway exclave that has reportedly killed more than 20 people and injured 200.

Tensions had been rising for months but escalated when Azerbaijan launched a new offensive on Tuesday aimed at disarming Armenian separatists. Much of the international community decried Baku’s operation, accusing it of breaking a promise, while authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh claimed the Armenians were not armed nor had military stations in the region.

Tigran thinks that it was Putin’s refusal to provide military help to Armenia, the separatists’ main backer, that led to their defeat in the 2020 war, when Azerbaijan regained control of strategic swathes around and in Nagorno-Karabakh and blocked its main supply route to Armenia.

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Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has said that Armenian-backed separatist forces were withdrawing from Nagorno-Karabakh, and that most of their hardware had been destroyed during Baku’s offensive.

“Illegal Armenian units have begun the process of withdrawal from their positions. They accepted our terms and began surrendering their arms,” Aliyev said in a TV address.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held a phone call and discussed the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh as well as bilateral relations, the TASS news agency has said, citing the Armenian government.

Russia has said its peacekeeping force stationed in Nagorno-Karabakh saw no breach of the ceasefire between Azerbaijan and separatist Armenian forces.

“No cases of ceasefire violations have been recorded,” the Russian defence ministry in charge of the peacekeeping force said, adding that it had evacuated 3,154 people, including 1,428 children to safe areas.

The Kremlin has said that events in Nagorno-Karabakh were an “internal” issue for Azerbaijan.

“Azerbaijan is acting on its own territory which Armenia has recognised,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, according to Russian news agencies.

“This is Azerbaijan’s internal affair.”

Thousands rallied outside Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s office in the Armenian capital Yerevan to protest the government’s handling of the crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Protestors who blocked all nearby streets accused the government of abandoning the ethnic Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev will address the nation, state media has reported.

“Dear viewers! President Ilham Aliyev will address the people,” the AzTV television channel said in a social media post.

Several hundred protesters gathered in the Armenian capital to demand that the government do more to support ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh after the breakaway region was forced into a surrender by Azerbaijan.

The protesters, many young, gathered on Republic Square in the heart of Yerevan. Several trucks carrying Armenian troops were also seen in the centre of the capital.

Samvel Sargsyan, 21, a student at the Theatre and Cinema University in Yerevan, said Armenia should help Karabakh.

“We need Armenia to join up with Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] and fight,” said Sargsyan, who was born in Karabakh’s capital, known to Armenians as Stepanakert and to Azeris as Khankendi.

“Armenians can’t accept another country, another religion. Why should we? Why should Armenia give a part of itself to another nation?”

Some of those in the square yelled “Artsakh!”, others “Nikol is a traitor!”, referring to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, Aykhan Hajizada, said his country has “agreed to hold a dialogue” with ethnic Armenians following the ceasefire agreement.

“We believe that after the disarmament and withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces, peace will finally come to the region,” Hajizada told Al Jazeera.

When asked about reports of civilian casualties, Hajizada said Azerbaijan “carried counter-terrorism measures against illegal military formations only”.

“In every military operation, there are collateral damages, but we cannot confirm that seven civilians were injured or died during this operation. Azerbaijan has never targeted civilians in this operation and is ready to provide safety and security to local Armenians in line with Azerbaijani constitution and legislation,” he said.

Elin Suleymanov, ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the United Kingdom, said the presence of separatist forces has been “a threat to the Azerbaijan-Armenia peace process”.

They have also been a threat to “both Armenian and Azerbaijani civilians, and to peace and stability in the wider region more broadly”, Suleymanov told Al Jazeera.

“Provocations by these forces continuously caused armed incidents, including the landmine death of Azerbaijani civilians and Azerbaijan’s response to this security threat,” he said.

“Now … peace negotiations can recommence in earnest and we can work together toward a durable peace process that will benefit everyone.”

Azerbaijan said that it wanted to integrate the ethnic Armenians of its Nagorno-Karabakh region peacefully.

Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to Azerbaijan’s president, told a news conference that the disarmament of Karabakh forces would improve the chances of successfully reintegrating the territory, which had been out of Baku’s control for three decades, as well as the prospects of peace with Azerbaijan’s neighbour Armenia.

He dismissed calls for UN Security Council involvement, saying any issues needed to be solved on the ground.

Thousands of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh have massed at the airport where some Russian peacekeepers are based after separatist forces agreed to a ceasefire which would see them surrender to Azerbaijan.

Separatists running the self-styled “Republic of Artsakh” urged the population of 120,000 not to rush to the airport in the capital which they call Stepanakert.

“We once again urge the population of Stepanakert not to succumb to panic and not to go to the airport on their own initiative in order to evacuate,” the separatists said.

Pictures from Karabakh showed thousands of people at the airport, some with young children.

Russia said its peacekeepers were performing their role. It added there were 2,261 people, including 1,049 children, sheltering at the peacekeepers’ base camp.

Pashinyan says “the intensity of the fighting has greatly decreased” in Nagorno-Karabakh, according to information the Armenian prime minister says he had received from the ground.

Fighting in the city of Stepanakert has also died down, journalist Gayane Gevorgyan told the Armenpress news agency.

“People are still hesitating to leave their shelters. Only a few people have come out for some fresh air, so to say,” the reporter said.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan says Armenia was not involved in drafting the ceasefire agreement, Armenpress reports.

He said it was not clear to which Armenian armed forces the agreement referred, considering that “we have numerously said that Armenia doesn’t have an army in Nagorno-Karabakh since August 2021”.

President Vladimir Putin says Russia is in contact with all sides in the conflict, the Vedomosti newspaper reports.

During a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Putin said that Russia expects to achieve a peaceful settlement of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.