Armenia's prime minister orders end to fighting over separatist Nagorno-Karabakh region
Armenia’s prime minister says he has ordered an end to fighting with Azerbaijan over the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Nikol Pashinian said on Facebook that he had signed an agreement with the presidents of Azerbaijan and Russia to halt the fighting that has raged since late September.
He wrote that the decision was “extremely painful for me personally and for our people”.
Nagorno-Karabakh is a region inside Azerbaijan that has been under control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since 1994.
Mr Pashinian’s announcement came after Azerbaijani forces seized the strategically key city of Shushi.
The fighting between the two countries started on September 27 and has left hundreds of people dead in the biggest escalation of the decades-old conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh since a separatist war there ended in 1994.
The region lies in Azerbaijan but has been under control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia.
Last month, the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a truce in Moscow after Russian President Vladimir Putin brokered it in a series of calls with President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Mr Pashinian.
The deal stipulated that the ceasefire should pave the way for talks on settling the conflict.
However, it lasted only a matter of hours before attacks broke out again.