BAKU: Russian peacekeepers on Wednesday completed their withdrawal from Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Baku recaptured last year from Armenian separatists, officials in Baku said.
Azerbaijan and Armenia had fought two wars — in 2020 and in the 1990s — for control of the then-breakaway enclave.
“The process of the full withdrawal of the manpower, weapons, and equipment of Russia’s peacekeeping contingent (in Karabakh) from Azerbaijan was completed on June 12,” the defense ministry in Baku said in a statement.
The withdrawal, which began in April, has been agreed between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev.
Last September, Baku took over the territory in a lightning one-day offensive that triggered a refugee crisis. Almost the entire local population of around 100,000 ethnic Armenians left for Armenia, fearing reprisals and repression.
The territory is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan despite historically being home to a majority Armenian population. It was controlled by pro-Yerevan separatists for nearly three decades.
The conflict has seen ties sour between traditional allies Russia and Armenia, with Yerevan accusing the Kremlin of failing to protect it in the face of a security threat from Azerbaijan.
After the loss of Karabakh, Yerevan has sought to forge new security alliances by deepening ties with the West.
On Tuesday, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and the United States Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia James O’Brien issued a joint statement saying Washington and Yerevan have agreed to “upgrade the status of our bilateral dialogue to a Strategic Partnership Commission.”
Last month, Yerevan returned to Azerbaijan four frontier villages which it had captured in the 1990s.
The move, which Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has defended as aimed at securing a definitive peace deal with Baku, sparked a wave of mass protests in Armenia.
Azerbaijan says Russian peacekeepers have completed withdrawal
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Azerbaijan says Russian peacekeepers have completed withdrawal
- The withdrawal has been agreed between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev
- The territory is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan despite historically being home to a majority Armenian population
Trump says “it will be done” on getting “Russian threat” away from Greenland
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that Denmark has not been able to do anything to get the “Russian threat” away from Greenland, and said, “Now it is time, and it will be done!!!“
“NATO has been telling Denmark, for 20 years, that “you have to get Russian threat away from Greenland.” Unfortunately, Denmark has been unable to do anything about it,” Trump wrote in a post on the social media website he owns called Truth Social.
The White House, the Danish Presidency in the European Union, and Denmark’s foreign affairs ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters’ request for comment.
Trump has repeatedly insisted he will settle for nothing less than ownership of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.
Leaders of both Denmark and Greenland have insisted the island is not for sale and does not want to be part of the United States.
Trump on Saturday vowed to implement a wave of increasing tariffs on European allies until the United States is allowed to buy Greenland.
The encroaching presence of China and Russia makes Greenland vital to US security interests, Trump has said. Danish and other European officials have pointed out that Greenland is already covered by NATO’s collective security pact.
