First Red Cross Aid Convoy Heads to Karabakh since Azerbaijan Retakes Region

FILE PHOTO: Vehicles of Russian peacekeepers leaving Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region for Armenia pass an Armenian checkpoint on a road near the village of Kornidzor, Armenia September 22, 2023. REUTERS/Irakli Gedenidze/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Vehicles of Russian peacekeepers leaving Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region for Armenia pass an Armenian checkpoint on a road near the village of Kornidzor, Armenia September 22, 2023. REUTERS/Irakli Gedenidze/File Photo
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First Red Cross Aid Convoy Heads to Karabakh since Azerbaijan Retakes Region

FILE PHOTO: Vehicles of Russian peacekeepers leaving Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region for Armenia pass an Armenian checkpoint on a road near the village of Kornidzor, Armenia September 22, 2023. REUTERS/Irakli Gedenidze/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Vehicles of Russian peacekeepers leaving Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region for Armenia pass an Armenian checkpoint on a road near the village of Kornidzor, Armenia September 22, 2023. REUTERS/Irakli Gedenidze/File Photo

An aid convoy of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) headed to Nagorno-Karabakh on Saturday, the first since Azerbaijan retook the breakaway region three days ago, as ethnic Armenians there complained of being abandoned by the world.

The Armenians of Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, were forced to declare a ceasefire on Sept. 20 after a lightning 24-hour military operation by the much larger Azerbaijani military.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, Russia's defense ministry said the Armenian fighters had begun handing over their weapons to Azerbaijan - including more than 800 guns and six armored vehicles - under Russian supervision. Moscow has about 2,000 peacekeepers in the area.

Azerbaijani officials resumed talks on Saturday with Samvel Shahramanyan, the head of the self-styled Republic of Artsakh, as the Armenians call Karabakh, Azerbaijani media reported, but no further information was immediately available.

The mountainous region is home to around 120,000 Armenians, many of whom have been without adequate food or fuel supplies for months due to an effective blockade by Azerbaijani forces.

Russia said it had delivered more than 50 tons of food and other aid to Karabakh.

The ICRC said it had supplied 28,000 diapers as well as blankets and fuel. A Reuters witness saw a small ICRC aid convoy approaching Armenia's border with Azerbaijan on Saturday afternoon but then journalists were ordered to leave the vicinity before the trucks crossed the frontier.

More than 20 other aid trucks, bearing Armenian number plates, have been lined up along a nearby roadside since July. Azerbaijan said at the time this convoy amounted to a "provocation" and an attack on its territorial integrity.

Lack of visibility

Azerbaijan wants to integrate the long-contested region of Karabakh and has promised to protect the Armenians' rights but says they are free to leave if they prefer. Armenians say they fear they will be persecuted if they stay.

Azerbaijan's interior ministry said on Saturday its main task was ensuring the safety of the Armenian civilian population and that it was providing them with tents, hot food and medical assistance.

"We are also working on issuing documents to the Armenian population, passports and so on," ministry spokesman Elshad Hajiyev told Reuters. "There are already people who have applied to us."

US Senator Gary Peters, who visited the Armenia-Azerbaijan border on Saturday, said the situation in Karabakh required international observers and transparency from Azerbaijan.

"I think the world needs to know exactly what's happening in there," Peters, a Democrat from Michigan, told reporters. "We've heard from the Azerbaijani government that there's nothing to see, nothing to worry about, but if that’s the case then we should allow international observers in to see."

Armenia, which lost a 2020 war to Azerbaijan over the region, has prepared space for tens of thousands of Armenians from Karabakh, including at hotels near the border, though Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan says he does not want them to leave their homes unless it is absolutely necessary.

Azerbaijan launched its "anti-terrorist" operation on Tuesday against Nagorno-Karabakh after some of its troops were killed in what Baku said were separatist attacks.

The Karabakh region was more militarized than Baku realized, Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to Azerbaijan's president, said on social media on Saturday, publishing a list of weapons and ammunition that had been seized in the past three days, including four tanks, 300 explosives and 441 mortar shells.

'Abandoned world'

Accounts of the fighting were chilling.

Armenui Karapetyan, an Armenian in Karabakh, said he was now homeless, holding just a few possessions and a photograph of his 24-year-old son who died in 2020, after leaving his home in the village of Kusapat.

"Today we were thrown out into the street - they made us vagabonds," Karapetyan told Armenia A1+, a partner of Reuters.

"What can I say? We live in an unfair, abandoned world. I have nothing to say. I feel sorry for the blood of our boys. I feel sorry for our lands for which our boys sacrificed their lives, and today... I miss the grave of my son."

Thousands of Karabakh Armenians have massed at the airport seeking the protection of Russian peacekeepers there.

Svetlana Alaverdyan, from the village of Arajadzor, said she had fled with just the clothes on her back after gun fights gripped the village.

"They were shooting on the right, they were shooting on the left - we went out one after another, without taking clothes," she told Armenia A1+.

"I had two sons - I gave them away, what else can I give? The superpowers resolve their issues at our expense."



Blinken Meets China’s Wang after Chiding Beijing’s ‘Escalating Actions’ at Sea

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at the 57th ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting at the National Convention Center, in Vientiane, Laos, July 27, 2024. (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at the 57th ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting at the National Convention Center, in Vientiane, Laos, July 27, 2024. (Reuters)
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Blinken Meets China’s Wang after Chiding Beijing’s ‘Escalating Actions’ at Sea

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at the 57th ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting at the National Convention Center, in Vientiane, Laos, July 27, 2024. (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at the 57th ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting at the National Convention Center, in Vientiane, Laos, July 27, 2024. (Reuters)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Saturday during a regional summit in Laos, hours after criticizing Beijing's "escalating and unlawful actions" in the South China Sea.

Blinken and Wang shook hands and exchanged greetings in front of cameras but made no comments before moving to closed-door talks in what will be their sixth meeting since June 23, when Blinken visited Beijing in a significant sign of improvement for strained relations between the world's two biggest economies.

Though Blinken had singled out China over its actions against US defense ally the Philippines in the South China Sea during a meeting with Southeast Asian counterparts earlier on Saturday, he also lauded the two countries for their diplomacy after Manila completed a resupply mission to troops in an area also claimed by Beijing.

The troop presence has for years angered China, which has clashed repeatedly with the Philippines over Manila's missions to a grounded navy ship at the Second Thomas Shoal, causing regional concern about an escalation.

The two sides this week reached an arrangement over how to conduct those missions.

"We are pleased to take note of the successful resupply today of the Second Thomas shoal, which is the product of an agreement reached between the Philippines and China," Blinken told ASEAN foreign ministers.

"We applaud that and hope and expect to see that it continues going forward."

GAZA SITUATION 'DIRE'

Blinken and Wang attended Saturday's security-focused ASEAN Regional Forum in Laos alongside top diplomats of major powers including Russia, India, Australia, Japan, the European, Britain and others, before heading to their meeting.

Blinken said earlier the United States was "working intensely every single day" to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and find a path to more enduring peace and security.

His remarks follow those of Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, who said the need for sustainable peace was urgent and international law should be applied to all. The comment from the world's largest Muslim-majority nation, was a veiled reference to recent decisions by two international courts over Israeli's Gaza offensives.

"We cannot continue closing our eyes to see the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza," she said.

More than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting in Gaza since Israel launched its incursion, according to Palestinian health authorities, who do not distinguish between fighters and non-combatants.

Israeli officials estimate that some 14,000 fighters from armed groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have been killed or taken prisoner, out of a force they estimated to number more than 25,000 at the start of the war.

The war began when Hamas fighters attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and abducting some 250 others, according to Israeli tallies.

Also in Laos, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said guidelines on the operation of US nuclear assets on the Korean peninsula were certain to add to regional security concerns.

Lavrov, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap, said he had not been briefed on the details of the plan, which was of concern to Russia.

"So far we can't even get an explanation of what this means, but there is no doubt that it causes additional anxiety," Russia's state-run RIA new agency quoted him as saying.

'THIS IS NOT SUSTAINABLE'

Ahead of Saturday's two summits, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong urged Myanmar's military rulers to take a different path and end an intensifying civil war, pressing the generals to abide by their commitment to follow ASEAN's five-point consensus peace plan.

The conflict pits Myanmar's well-equipped military against a loose alliance of ethnic minority rebel groups and an armed resistance movement that has been gaining ground and testing the generals' ability to govern.

The junta has largely ignored the ASEAN-promoted peace effort, and the 10-member bloc has hit a wall as all sides refuse to enter into dialogue.

"We see the instability, the insecurity, the deaths, the pain that is being caused by the conflict," Wong told reporters.

"My message from Australia to the regime is, this is not sustainable for you or for your people."

An estimated 2.6 million people have been displaced by fighting. The junta has been condemned for excessive force in its air strikes on civilian areas and accused of atrocities, which it has dismissed as Western disinformation.

ASEAN issued a communique on Saturday, two days after its top diplomats met, stressing it was united behind its peace plan for Myanmar, saying it was confident in its special envoy's resolve to achieve "an inclusive and durable peaceful resolution" to the conflict.

It condemned violence against civilians and urged all sides in Myanmar to cease hostilities.

ASEAN welcomed unspecified practical measures to reduce tension in the South China Sea and prevent accidents and miscalculations, while urging all stakeholders to halt actions that could complicate and escalate disputes.

The ministers described North Korea's missile tests as worrisome developments and urged peaceful resolutions to the conflicts in Ukraine, as well as Gaza, expressing concern over the dire humanitarian situation and "alarming casualties" there.