Handover of a Libyan suspect opens a new chapter in Lockerbie bombing horror story

Special Remains of the 747 Pan Am airliner that exploded and crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 22, 1988. All 243 passengers and 16 crew were killed as well as 11 Lockerbie residents. (AFP)
Remains of the 747 Pan Am airliner that exploded and crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 22, 1988. All 243 passengers and 16 crew were killed as well as 11 Lockerbie residents. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 20 December 2022
Follow

Handover of a Libyan suspect opens a new chapter in Lockerbie bombing horror story

Handover of a Libyan suspect opens a new chapter in Lockerbie bombing horror story
  • Many believe Libyans were accused of a crime that the Iranian regime had a motive to perpetrate
  • For others, the arrest of Masud offers the prospect of long overdue justice for the 270 victims of the disaster

LONDON: It happened more than three decades ago, but the horror that was the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 lives on, for the families of the slain, for the Scottish community torn apart when the flaming wreckage crashed down in pieces on their town and for the first responders who arrived to find hellish scenes none would ever forget.

For some, the arrest last week of a Libyan man charged with having made the bomb that downed the jumbo jet over Lockerbie on Dec. 21, 1988, offers the prospect of long overdue justice for the 270 victims of the disaster and their families.

For others, though, confidence in the judicial system and the joint US-Scottish investigation that has led to the latest arrest was shaken long ago by uncertainties that continue to hang over the trial and conviction in May 2000 of another Libyan, Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi, who in 2001 was found guilty of carrying out the bombing.

The undisputed facts of the case, which will doubtless be rehearsed again during the upcoming trial, are harrowing.

The Boeing 747, en route from London to New York City, was just half an hour into its flight and cruising at 31,000 feet when the bomb exploded shortly after 7 p.m., scattering aircraft parts, luggage and bodies over a wide area. The investigators would be faced with a crime scene of 2,200 square kilometers.

On board the doomed aircraft were 259 passengers and crew of 21 nationalities. The oldest victim was 82, the youngest a two-month-old baby, found held tight in her dead mother’s arms.




A man looks at the main memorial stone in memory of the victims of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, in the garden of remembrance near Lockerbie, Scotland Friday Dec. 21, 2018. (AFP)

The 190 Americans on the flight included a party of 35 students from Syracuse University, returning home for Christmas after an overseas study tour.

Eleven more people died in their homes on the ground. Among them were the Flannigans, mother and father Kathleen, 41, Thomas, 44, and their daughter Joanne, aged 10.

Joanne’s body was eventually found in the deep crater gouged out of the street where the family lived, but her parents’ remains were never recovered.

Last week, 71-year-old Abu Agila Mohammad Masud Kheir Al-Marimi, an alleged former intelligence officer for the regime of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, appeared in a US court accused of being the bombmaker.

It is a stunning development in a case which, for many relatives of the dead, has never been satisfactorily settled. Masud’s anticipated trial represents an unexpected opportunity for the many remaining doubts surrounding the Lockerbie disaster to be resolved once and for all.




Paul Hudson of Sarasota, Fla., holds up a photo of his daughter Melina who was killed at 16 years old along with the photos of almost a hundred other victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, as he speaks to members of the media in front of the federal courthouse in Washington, Monday, Dec. 12, 2022. (AFP)

Key among them is the suspicion, which has persisted for three decades, that the Libyans were falsely accused of a crime that was actually perpetrated by the Iranian regime.

Iran certainly had a motive. On July 3, 1988, five months before the bombing, Iran Air flight 655, an Airbus A300 carrying Iranian pilgrims bound for Makkah, had been shot down accidentally over the Strait of Hormuz by a US guided-missile cruiser, the Vincennes.

All 290 people on board were killed, including 66 children and 16 members of one family, who had been traveling to Dubai for a wedding.

In 1991, a subsequently declassified secret report from within the US Defense Intelligence Agency made it clear that from the outset Iran was the number-one suspect.

Ayatollah Mohtashemi, a former Iranian interior minister, was “closely connected to the Al-Abas and Abu Nidal terrorist groups,” it read.

He had “recently paid $10 million in cash and gold to these two organizations to carry out terrorist activities and ... paid the same amount to bomb Pam Am flight 103, in retaliation for the US shoot-down of the Iranian Airbus.”

The evidence implicating Iran piled up. It emerged that two months before the bombing, German police had raided a cell of the terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — General Command and seized a bomb hidden in a Toshiba cassette player, just like the one that would be used to blow up Pan Am flight 103.

Yet in November 1991 it was two Libyan intelligence operatives, Abdel Baset Ali Al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, who were charged with the murders. The case against them was circumstantial at best.




The artist sketch depicts Assistant U.S. Attorney Erik Kenerson, front left, watching as Whitney Minter, a public defender from the eastern division of Virginia, stands to represent Abu Agila Mohammad Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi, accused of making the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. (AFP)

After years of negotiations with Qaddafi’s government, the two men were eventually handed over to be tried in a specially convened Scottish court in the Netherlands. Their trial began in May 2000, and on Jan. 31, 2001, Al-Megrahi was found guilty and Fhimah was acquitted.

The crown’s case was that an unaccompanied suitcase containing the bomb had been carried on an Air Malta flight from Luqa Airport in Malta to Frankfurt. There, it was transferred to a Pan Am aircraft to London, where it was loaded onto flight 103.

Inside the suitcase, wrapped in clothing, was the Toshiba cassette player containing the bomb.

A small part of a printed circuit board, believed to be from the bomb timer, was found in the wreckage, along with a fragment of a piece of clothing. This was traced to a store in Malta where the owner, Tony Gauci, told police he remembered selling it to a Libyan man.

Gauci, who died in 2016, was the prosecution’s main witness, but from the outset there were serious doubts about his evidence. He was interviewed 23 times by Scottish police before he finally identified Al-Megrahi — and only then after seeing the wanted man’s photograph in a newspaper article naming him as a suspect.

In their judgment, even the three Scottish judges conceded that “on the matter of identification of the … accused, there are undoubtedly problems.”

Worse, in 2007 Scottish newspaper The Herald claimed that the CIA had offered Gauci $2 million to give evidence in the case.

FASTFACTS

• Abu Agila Mohammad Masud Kheir Al-Marimi recently appeared in the US District Court of the District of Columbia to face charges over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

• Masud allegedly confessed to role as bombmaker while in Libyan custody the day after the US ambassador was killed in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012.

• Five months before Lockerbie bombing, 290 people died when Iran Air flight 655 carrying pilgrims was accidentally shot down by US guided-missile cruiser.

Another part of the prosecution’s case was that the fingernail-sized fragment of circuit board found in the wreckage, believed to have been part of the timer that triggered the bomb, matched a batch of timers supplied to Libya by a Swiss company in 1985.

However, the company insisted the timer on the aircraft had not been supplied to Libya, and in 2007 its CEO claimed that he had been offered $4 million by the FBI to say that it had.

Many have denounced the trial as a sham, suggesting that Qaddafi agreed to surrender Al-Megrahi and Fhimah, accept responsibility for the attack and pay compensation to the families of the victims, only because the US promised that the sanctions that had been imposed on Libya would be eased.

After Al-Megrahi’s appeal against his conviction was rejected in March 2002, one of the independent UN observers assigned to the case as a condition of Libya’s cooperation condemned what he called the “spectacular miscarriage of justice.”




Jim Swire, spokesman for relatives of victims of the Lockerbie plane crash and father of a daughter who died in the terrorist attack, carries a document marked 'Judgement Day' as he arrives at the Scottish court at Camp Zeist 10 January 2001. (AFP)

Professor Hans Kochler said that he was “not convinced at all that the sequence of events that led to this explosion of the plane over Scotland was as described by the court. Everything that is presented is only circumstantial evidence.”

It remains to be seen what evidence will be presented in the upcoming trial of Masud.

Reports say that he was released only last year from prison in Libya, having been jailed for a decade for his part in the government of Qaddafi, who was overthrown in 2011.

Last week, Libya’s Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah said that his government had handed Masud over to the Americans.

“An arrest warrant was issued against him from Interpol,” he said on Dec. 16. “It has become imperative for us to cooperate in this file for the sake of Libya’s interest and stability.”




Last week, Libya’s Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah said that his government had handed Masud over to the Americans. (AFP)

As Dbeibah put it, Libya “had to wipe the mark of terrorism from the Libyan people’s forehead.”

From the very beginning, one of the strongest advocates for the innocence of Al-Megrahi was Jim Swire, a British doctor whose daughter Flora died in the bombing on the eve of her 24th birthday. Now 86, Swire has spent the past three decades campaigning tirelessly to expose what he believes was a miscarriage of justice.

Al-Megrahi, suffering from prostate cancer, was released from prison on compassionate grounds in 2009. Shortly before his death in Libya in 2012, he was visited in his sick bed by Swire, who in an interview last year recalled Al-Megrahi’s last words to him: “I am going to a place where I hope soon to see Flora. I will tell her that her father is my friend.”

Last week, Swire called for the trial of Masud not to be held in the US or Scotland.

“There are so many loose ends that hang from this dreadful case, largely emanating from America, that I think we should … seek a court that is free of being beholden to any nation directly involved in the atrocity itself,” he said.

“What we’ve always been after amongst the British relatives is the truth, and not a fabrication that might seem to be replacing the truth.”

 


Odesa port hit in Russian attacks: Ukrainian military

Updated 4 sec ago
Follow

Odesa port hit in Russian attacks: Ukrainian military

Odesa port hit in Russian attacks: Ukrainian military
  • Russia “attacked the south of the country again,” the Defense Forces of the South of Ukraine said on the messaging platform Telegram.
  • Russia and Ukraine are two major agricultural powers whose supplies are crucial for global food security
Kyiv: Ukraine’s southern port of Odesa was hit by Russian missiles overnight, destroying grain stores, the Ukrainian military said Monday.
Russia “attacked the south of the country again,” the Defense Forces of the South of Ukraine said on the messaging platform Telegram.
Since July when Moscow pulled out of a UN-brokered deal allowing safe grain shipments via the Black Sea, Russia has ramped up attacks on Ukraine’s grain-exporting infrastructure in the southern Odesa and Mykolaiv regions.
Nataliya Gumenyuk, spokeswoman for the Ukrainian southern military command, said Russia was apparently “trying to test out the density of the air defense.”
“They understand that port infrastructure is a priority for our region, and that it is reliably protected. However, that is why the attack that occurred tonight was both massive and by combined means,” she said on Telegram.
The Defense Forces of the South of Ukraine said Russia directed 19 drones and 2 Onyx supersonic missiles at Odesa, and fired 12 Kalibr missiles.
They claimed all 19 Shaheds and 11 Kalibrs “were shot down.”
However, Russia did “hit the port infrastructure” in Odesa, which “suffered significant damage,” they said.
“Onyx missiles destroyed granaries. But people were not hurt,” they said.
Warehouses and a private house in the Odesa suburbs were damaged and caught fire, they added, “as a result of falling debris.”
Gumenyuk said one of the grain stores hit was empty.
“Nevertheless, hitting grain deal-related infrastructure,” she said, was a Russian “priority.”
Odesa regional governor Oleg Kiper said on Telegram that one woman in Odesa, a civilian, was injured by shrapnel “in a blast wave” and was being treated in hospital.
Ukraine is testing a new Black Sea route that avoids international waters and uses those controlled by NATO members Bulgaria and Romania.
A first ship loaded with wheat reached Istanbul on Thursday despite Russian threats to attack boats heading to or from Ukraine.
A second shipment reached Turkiye on Sunday, according to maritime traffic monitoring sites.
Russia and Ukraine are two major agricultural powers whose supplies are crucial for global food security.
Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor in February last year — and subsequent international sanctions — have destabilized global supplies and markets.
Meanwhile Russia’s defense ministry said its air defenses had “destroyed” four unmanned aerial vehicles over the northwestern Black Sea, and the Crimean peninsula which Moscow annexed in 2014.
It said two drones each were intercepted in Kursk and Bryansk, two regions bordering Ukraine.
Kursk regional governor Roman Starovoyt said several homes and the roof of an administrative building were damaged “due to an attack by Ukrainian UAVs” in the Central district.
No casualties were reported.
Bryansk regional governor Aleksandr Bogomaz said there were “no casualties or damage” in the region.

Punjab’s Sikhs fear Canada-India row threatens them at home, abroad

Punjab’s Sikhs fear Canada-India row threatens them at home, abroad
Updated 54 min 21 sec ago
Follow

Punjab’s Sikhs fear Canada-India row threatens them at home, abroad

Punjab’s Sikhs fear Canada-India row threatens them at home, abroad
  • Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s murder sparked severe diplomatic row between India, Canada
  • Sikhs make up just 2 percent of India’s 1.4 billion Hindu-majority population but are a majority in Punjab

BHARSINGHPURA, India: A bitter row between India and Canada over the murder of a Sikh separatist is being felt in Punjab, where some Sikhs fear both a backlash from India’s Hindu-nationalist government and a threat to their prospects for a better life in North America.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a plumber who left the north Indian state a quarter-century ago and became a Canadian citizen, was shot dead in June outside a temple in a Vancouver suburb where he was a separatist leader among the many Sikhs living there.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last week Ottawa had “credible allegations” that Indian government agents may be linked to the killing.

India, which labelled Nijjar a “terrorist” in 2020, angrily rejected the allegation as “absurd,” expelled the chief of Canadian intelligence in India, issued travel warnings, stopped visa issuance to Canadians and downsized Canada’s diplomatic presence in India.

Sikhs make up just 2 percent of India’s 1.4 billion people but they are a majority in Punjab, a state of 30 million where their religion was born 500 years ago. Outside of Punjab, the greatest number of Sikhs live in Canada, the site of many protests that have irked India.

DREAM OF CANADA

An insurgency seeking a Sikh homeland of Khalistan, which killed tens of thousands in the 1980s and ‘90s, was crushed by India, but embers from the flame of the independence drive still glow.

In the village of Bharsinghpura, there are few memories of Nijjar, but his uncle, Himmat Singh Nijjar, 79, said locals “think it was very brave of Trudeau” to accuse Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of potential involvement in the killing.

“For the sake of one ordinary person, he did not need to take such a huge risk on his government,” the uncle told Reuters, sitting on a wooden bench by a tractor in his farmhouse, surrounded by lush paddy fields and banana trees.

Still, though, the elder Nijjar said he is worried about deteriorating diplomatic relations with Canada and declining economic prospects in Punjab.

The once-prosperous breadbasket of India, Punjab has been overtaken by states that focussed on manufacturing, services and technology in the last two decades.

“Now every family wants to send its sons and daughters to Canada as farming here is not lucrative, said the elder Nijjar.

India is the largest source for international students in Canada, their numbers jumping 47 percent last year to 320,000.

‘ATMOSPHERE OF FEAR’

“We now fear whether Canada will give student visas or if the Indian government will create some hurdles,” said undergraduate Gursimran Singh, 19, who wants to go to Canada.

He was speaking at the holiest of Sikh shrines, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, where many students go to pray for, or give thanks for, for student visas.

The temple became a flashpoint for Hindu-Sikh tension when then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi allowed it to be stormed in 1984 to flush out Sikh separatists, angering Sikhs around the world. Her Sikh bodyguards assassinated her soon afterward.

Ties between Sikh groups in Punjab and Prime Minister Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government have been strained since Sikh farmers led year-long protests against farm deregulation in 2020 and blocked the capital, forcing Modi to withdraw the measure in a rare political defeat for the strongman.

Modi’s government has created “an atmosphere of fear,” especially for young people, said Sandeep Singh, 31, from Nijjar’s village.

“If we are doing a protest, parents wouldn’t like their child to participate because they are afraid their children can meet the same fate” as Nijjar in Canada, he said.

Kanwar Pal, political affairs secretary for the radical separatist Dal Khalsa group, said, “Whosoever fights for Khalistan fights for right to self-determination, rights for plebiscite in Punjab. India perceived those Sikhs as their enemies and they target them.”

A BJP spokesperson declined to comment on the accusations.

Senior BJP leaders have said there was no wave of support in Punjab for independence and that any such demands were a threat to India. At the same time, the party says no one has done as much for the Sikhs as Modi.


Leader of Canada’s House of Commons apologizes for honoring man who fought for Nazis

Leader of Canada’s House of Commons apologizes for honoring man who fought for Nazis
Updated 25 September 2023
Follow

Leader of Canada’s House of Commons apologizes for honoring man who fought for Nazis

Leader of Canada’s House of Commons apologizes for honoring man who fought for Nazis
  • Canadian lawmakers cheered and Zelensky raised his fist in acknowledgement as Hunka saluted from the gallery during two separate standing ovations

TORONTO: The speaker of Canada’s House of Commons apologized Sunday for recognizing a man who fought for a Nazi military unit during World War II.
Just after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered an address in the House of Commons on Friday, Canadian lawmakers gave 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka a standing ovation when Speaker Anthony Rota drew attention to him. Rota introduced Hunka as a war hero who fought for the First Ukrainian Division.
“In my remarks following the address of the President of Ukraine, I recognized an individual in the gallery. I have subsequently become aware of more information which causes me to regret my decision to do so,” Rota said in a statement.
He added that his fellow Parliament members and the Ukraine delegation were not aware of his plan to recognize Hunka. Rota noted Hunka is from his district.
“I particularly want to extend my deepest apologies to Jewish communities in Canada and around the world. I accept full responsibility for my action,” Rota said.
Hunka could not be immediately reached for comment.
Canadian lawmakers cheered and Zelensky raised his fist in acknowledgement as Hunka saluted from the gallery during two separate standing ovations. Rota called him a “Ukrainian hero and a Canadian hero, and we thank him for all his service.”
Zelensky was in Ottawa to bolster support from Western allies for Ukraine’s war against the Russian invasion.
Vladimir Putin has painted his enemies in Ukraine as “neo-Nazis,” even though Zelensky is Jewish and lost relatives in the Holocaust.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office said in a statement that Rota had apologized and accepted full responsibility for issuing the invitation to Hunka and for the recognition in Parliament.
“This was the right thing to do,” the statement said. “No advance notice was provided to the Prime Minister’s Office, nor the Ukrainian delegation, about the invitation or the recognition.”
The First Ukrainian Division was also known as the Waffen-SS Galicia Division or the SS 14th Waffen Division, a voluntary unit that was under the command of the Nazis.
The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies issued a statement Sunday saying the division “was responsible for the mass murder of innocent civilians with a level of brutality and malice that is unimaginable.”
“An apology is owed to every Holocaust survivor and veteran of the Second World War who fought the Nazis, and an explanation must be provided as to how this individual entered the hallowed halls of Canadian Parliament and received recognition from the Speaker of the House and a standing ovation,” the statement said.
B’nai Brith Canada’s CEO, Michael Mostyn, said it was outrageous that Parliament honored a former member of a Nazi unit, saying Ukrainian “ultra-nationalist ideologues” who volunteered for the Galicia Division “dreamed of an ethnically homogenous Ukrainian state and endorsed the idea of ethnic cleansing.”
“We understand an apology is forthcoming. We expect a meaningful apology. Parliament owes an apology to all Canadians for this outrage, and a detailed explanation as to how this could possibly have taken place at the center of Canadian democracy,” Mostyn said before Rota issued his statement.
Members of Parliament from all parties rose to applaud Hunka. A spokesperson for the Conservative party said the party was not aware of his history at the time.
“We find the reports of this individual’s history very troubling,” said Sebastian Skamski, adding that Trudeau’s Liberal party would have to explain why he was invited.


France’s troop pullout announcement warmly welcomed by Niger ruling junta

French Barkhane Air Force mechanics maintain a Mirage 2000 on the Niamey, Niger base on June 5, 2021. (AP)
French Barkhane Air Force mechanics maintain a Mirage 2000 on the Niamey, Niger base on June 5, 2021. (AP)
Updated 25 September 2023
Follow

France’s troop pullout announcement warmly welcomed by Niger ruling junta

French Barkhane Air Force mechanics maintain a Mirage 2000 on the Niamey, Niger base on June 5, 2021. (AP)
  • Niger’s military rulers describes pullout as “a new step toward sovereignty”
  • Macron said he still regards democratically elected president Mohammed Bazoum as Niger's leader

PARIS: France will pull its soldiers out of Niger following a July coup in the West African country, President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday, dealing a huge blow to French influence and counter-insurgency operations in the Sahel region.

Macron said 1,500 troops would withdraw by the end of the year and that France, the former colonial power in Niger, refused to “be held hostage by the putchists.”

Niger’s military rulers welcomed the announcement as “a new step toward sovereignty.”

France’s exit, which comes after weeks of pressure from the junta and popular demonstrations, is likely to exacerbate Western concerns over Russia’s expanding influence in Africa. The Russian mercenary force Wagner already present in Niger’s neighbor Mali.

“This Sunday, we celebrate a new step toward the sovereignty of Niger,” said a statement from the country’s military rulers, who seized power in late July by overthrowing President Mohamed Bazoum on July 26.

“The French troops and the ambassador of France will leave Nigerien soil by the end of the year.”

The statement, read out on national television, added: “This is a historic moment, which speaks to the determination and will of the Nigerien people.”

Earlier Sunday, before Macron’s announcement, the body regulating aviation safety in Africa (ASECNA), announced that Niger’s military rulers had banned “French aircraft” from flying over the country’s airspace.

The French president has refused to recognize the junta as Niger’s legitimate authority but said Paris would coordinate troop withdraw with the coup leaders.“We will consult with the putschists because we want things to be orderly,” Macron said in an interview with France’s TF1 and France 2 television stations.

France’s ambassador was also being pulled out and would return to the country in the next few hours, Macron added.

French influence over its former colonies has waned in West Africa in recent years, just as popular vitriol has grown. Its forces have been kicked out of neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso since coups in those countries, reducing its role in a region-wide fight against deadly Islamist insurgencies.

Until the coup, Niger had remained a key security partner of France and the United States, which have used it as a base to fight an Islamist insurgency in West and Central Africa’s wider Sahel region.

Russia's expanding presence

France’s military base in Niger’s capital, Niamey, had become the epicenter of anti-French protests since the July 26 coup.

Groups have regularly gathered on the street outside to call for the exit of troops stationed in the capital. On one Saturday this month, tens of thousands rallied against France, slitting the throat of a goat dressed in French colors and carrying coffins draped in French flags.

Pro-coup demonstrators in Niamey have waved Russian flags, adding to Western countries’ fears that Niger could follow Mali’s lead and replace their troops with Wagner fighters.

Before his death in a plane crash last month, Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin spoke in a social media clip of making Russia greater on all continents and Africa more free. Wagner’s future has been unclear since his demise.

Wagner is also active in Central African Republic and Libya. Western nations say it is also present in Sudan, though it denies this. Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for a return to constitutional order in Niger.

French nuclear power plants source a small amount — less than 10 percent — of their uranium from Niger, with France’s state-owned Orano operating a mine in Niger’s north.

Macron said he still regarded democratically elected President Mohammed Bazoum, currently held prisoner by the coup leaders, as Niger’s legitimate leader and had informed him of his decision.
 

 


Nagorno-Karabakh exodus grows amid ‘ethnic cleansing’ fears

Nagorno-Karabakh exodus grows amid ‘ethnic cleansing’ fears
Updated 25 September 2023
Follow

Nagorno-Karabakh exodus grows amid ‘ethnic cleansing’ fears

Nagorno-Karabakh exodus grows amid ‘ethnic cleansing’ fears
  • PM Pashinyan signals major shift away from Russia
  • 120,000 Armenians ‘preparing to flee’

Fears of ethnic cleansing and repression will force more than 120,000 ethnic Armenians to flee Nagorno-Karabakh and head to Armenia, the leadership of the breakaway region said on Sunday.

“Our people do not want to live as part of Azerbaijan,” said David Babayan, an adviser to Samvel Shahramanyan, president of the self-styled Republic of Artsakh. He added that “99.9 percent prefer to leave our historic lands.”

Babayan’s remarks came as Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said the Karabakh Armenians were likely to leave the region, and that Armenia was ready to take them in following defeat last week at the hands of Azerbaijan.

“The fate of our poor people will go down in history as a disgrace, and a shame for the Armenian people and for the whole civilized world,” Babayan said. “Those responsible for our fate will one day have to answer for their sins.”

The Armenians of Karabakh — a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but previously beyond Baku’s control — were forced to declare a ceasefire on Sept. 20 after a lightning 24-hour military operation by the much larger Azerbaijani military.
Azerbaijan said it will guarantee their rights and integrate the region, but the Armenians say they fear repression.

BACKGROUND

This week’s lightning operation could mark a historic geopolitical shift, with Azerbaijan victorious over the separatists and Armenia publicly distancing itself from its traditional ally Russia.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that his former Soviet republic’s current foreign security alliances were ‘ineffective’ and ‘insufficient.’

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused Armenia of ‘adding fuel to the fire’ with its public rhetoric.

Hundreds of refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh have begun arriving in Armenia, local officials said.

The Armenian leaders of Karabakh said in a statement that all those made homeless by the Azerbaijani military operation and wanting to leave will be escorted to Armenia by Russian peacekeepers.


READ MORE:

Azerbaijan-Armenia reconciliation possible if apology offered for past atrocities, Azerbaijan presidential adviser tells Arab News

Why Lebanese-Armenians feel the pull of the Nagorno-Karabakh war


Reporters near the village of Kornidzor on the Armenian border saw heavily laden cars pass into Armenia, with one of the drivers saying the vehicles were from Nagorno-Karabakh.

It was unclear when the bulk of the population will move down the Lachin corridor, which links the territory to Armenia.

Meanwhile, Armenia’s leader is facing calls to resign for failing to save Karabakh.

In an address to the nation on Sunday, Pashinyan said some humanitarian aid had arrived, but the Armenians of Karabakh still faced “the danger of ethnic cleansing.”

He added: “If proper conditions are not created for the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh to live in their homes and there are no effective protection mechanisms against ethnic cleansing, the likelihood is rising that the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh will see exile from their homeland as the only way to save their lives and identity.”

Pashinyan signaled a major foreign policy shift away from Russia, following Moscow’s refusal to enter the conflictHe said that the former Soviet republic’s current foreign security alliances were “ineffective” and “insufficient,” and added that Armenia could join the International Criminal Court.

Russian officials say Pashinyan is to blame for his own mishandling of the crisis, and have repeatedly said that Armenia, which borders Turkiye, Iran, Azerbaijan and Georgia, has few other friends in the region.

A humanitarian convoy for Nagorno-Karabakh moves along the Armenian side of the border near the town of Kornidzor. Tension was running high at the crossing on Sunday amid growing international concern. (AFP)

A mass exodus could change the delicate balance of power in the South Caucasus region.

Armenian authorities said that about 150 tons of humanitarian aid from Russia and another 65 tons of flour shipped by the International Committee of the Red Cross had arrived in the region.

With 2,000 peacekeepers in the region, Russia said that under the terms of the ceasefire six armored vehicles, more than 800 small arms, anti-tank weapons and portable air defense systems, as well as 22,000 ammunition rounds, had been handed in by Saturday.