Azerbaijan Clinches Cease-Fire With Armenian Separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at a new Nagorno-Karabakh cease-fire between Armenian separatists and Azerbaijan, a meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Ukraine’s plea to the U.N. Security Council.

Armenian separatists surrendered to Azerbaijani troops on Wednesday, halting a 24-hour surge in violence in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Through a Russian-led cease-fire, Armenian forces agreed to lay down their arms and join “reintegration” talks, which will start Thursday and focus on the future governance of ethnic Armenians in the area.

According to a top Azerbaijani foreign-policy advisor, Baku has dismissed calls for the United Nations Security Council to get involved and announced that it would support normalizing relations with Yerevan. However, not everyone appears to be onboard. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Wednesday that Yerevan was not involved in drafting the cease-fire agreement. Many Armenians have since called for his resignation.

Clashes erupted on Tuesday, when Azerbaijan sent troops into Nagorno-Karabakh as part of an “anti-terrorist” operation to destroy Armenian military facilities, which Yerevan says do not exist. Although the region is internationally recognized as falling under Azerbaijani sovereignty, around 120,000 ethnic Armenians call Nagorno-Karabakh home. Baku has since said it will use talks on Thursday to carve a path forward for ethnic Armenians to have constitutional protections.

Still, thousands of people in Nagorno-Karabakh fear that the violence could escalate at any moment. More than 2,200 locals gathered at Stepanakert Airport (known as Khojaly Airport by Azerbaijanis) on Wednesday to seek safety with Russian peacekeepers. Yerevan claims that at least 27 people were killed in clashes since Tuesday. Baku has put the death toll at only one soldier.

Since the Soviet Union fell in 1991, Nagorno-Karabakh has been the epicenter of two major wars, including heavy fighting as recently as 2020, when thousands of Armenian and Azerbaijani soldiers were killed. For the past nine months, Baku has imposed a blockade on the Lachin corridor, which links Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh—causing food and supply shortages that have catalyzed a dire humanitarian crisis. “Disruptions to the supply of electricity, natural gas and vehicle fuel add up to extreme hardship, especially for groups who are vulnerable to discrimination and marginalization,” said Amnesty International’s Marie Struthers. “This must end now.”

Yerevan has also accused Azerbaijan of ethnically cleansing the region and suggested that Russian peacekeepers have not done enough to stop it. “Russia’s war in Ukraine has not only concentrated the vast majority of Russian military forces in that theater, but it has also challenged Moscow’s diplomatic position, which looks to maintain the status quo in Karabakh on its own terms,” argued Eurasia analyst Eugene Chausovsky in Foreign Policy.

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A long-awaited meeting. After a significant delay, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally met with U.S. President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday. This is their first in-person meeting since Netanyahu took office nearly nine months ago. The two discussed violence against Palestinians and threats to Israeli democracy through Netanyahu’s judicial reform bill. The meeting came just hours after Israeli forces killed six Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza while allegedly targeting militants.

Biden’s decision to postpone meeting with Netanyahu for months was a stark break with past U.S. policy toward Israel. What has for years been one of Washington’s top allies is now facing unprecedented levels of criticism from the White House over democratic backsliding and human rights abuses. The meeting at the U.N., though, demonstrates that even under Netanyahu, Israel is too vital an ally in the Middle East for the United States to ignore.

UNGA highlights. The U.S.-Israel meeting was not the only major event at the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday. On the summit’s second day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed a special session of the U.N. Security Council to gain support for his proposal on how to end the war against Russia. “Humankind no longer pins its hopes on the U.N. when it comes to the defense of the sovereign border of nations,” Zelensky said in a scathing critique of the body, which he argued was deadlocked.

Meanwhile on Wednesday, around 60 nations signed a landmark oceans treaty to conserve biodiversity on the high seas. Adopted by the U.N. in June, the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction deal creates sanctuaries where fishing is prohibited, establishes environmental assessments, and invests hundreds of millions of dollars into green technology.

Path to peace. On Tuesday, the Colombian government and Estado Mayor Central (EMC), a dissident branch of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), agreed to return to peace talks and implement a 10-month cease-fire that will begin on Oct. 8.

EMC, however, has a poor track record with peace talks. The left-wing rebel group does not recognize FARC’s 2016 peace agreement with the government. And in May, Bogotá was forced to suspend a December 2022 cease-fire following the deaths of four boys recruited to be FARC fighters.

Long train rides can get boring, but don’t worry: Japan’s upping the ante for onboard entertainment. On Monday, professional Japanese fighters duked it out while traveling from Tokyo to Nagoya, marking the world’s first wrestling match held on a bullet train. After 30 minutes, Minoru Suzuki was declared the winner. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.