MOSCOW (Reuters) – Armenia is ready to accept all ethnic Armenian compatriots from Nagorno-Karabakh and the likelihood is rising that they will leave, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in an address to the nation on Sunday.
“The Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh still face the danger of ethnic cleansing,” Pashinyan said, TASS reported. “Humanitarian supplies have arrived in Nagorno-Karabakh in recent days, but this does not change the situation.”
“If real living conditions are not created for the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh in their homes and effective mechanisms of protection against ethnic cleansing, then the likelihood is increasing that the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh will see expulsion from their homeland as the only way out.”
The 120,000 ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh will leave for Armenia as they do not want to live as part of Azerbaijan and fear ethnic cleansing, the leadership of the breakaway region told Reuters on Sunday.
“Our government will lovingly welcome our brothers and sisters from Nagorno-Karabakh,” Pashinyan said.
Pashinyan also said that the security blocks of which Armenia was a member had been ineffective, clearly criticism of Russia, Yerevan’s main big-power ally.
(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge)
