Pashinyan says soon no Armenian will be left in Karabakh, denounces ‘ethnic cleansing’

Tbilisi, Sep 28 (EFE).- Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said Thursday that in the coming days no Armenians will remain in Nagorno-Karabakh and denounced that an “ethnic cleansing” was being carried out in the region.

“The exodus of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh continues as a result of the policy of ethnic cleansing carried out by Azerbaijan,” said Pashinyan, according to state-owned Armenpress news agency.

“Analysis shows that no Armenian will be left in NK in the coming days. This is a direct act of ethnic cleansing and (dispossession), and what we’ve been warning about the international community for a long time,” he added.

Pashinyan stressed that the statements of several “international actors” condemning ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh were “important,” but if no concrete steps followed, they would only serve as “moral statistics for history.”

“If no relevant political and legal decisions follow the statements on condemning it, the condemnations become acts of giving consent to what’s happening,” the prime minister underlined.

More than half of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh has moved to Armenia since Sunday after Azerbaijan launched a military operation there on Sep. 19, according to official data.

“At 0400 GMT, 68,386 forcibly displaced people from Nagorno-Karabakh had arrived in Armenia,” said Nazeli Baghdasarian, spokesperson for Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, on his official Facebook account.

Armenia said that in 24 hours, the number of Armenians who have left Karabakh for Armenia increased by more than 22,000.

The international community has expressed concern over the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, and urged Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev to respect the rights and security of Armenians, but avoided talking about ethnic cleansing.

The Armenian prime minister stressed that currently their primary task was to receive the displaced Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh and help meet their most urgent needs. EFE

mv-mos/lds/sc