{"id":494,"date":"2020-11-30T21:07:27","date_gmt":"2020-11-30T21:07:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=129496"},"modified":"2020-11-30T21:07:27","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T21:07:27","slug":"azerbaijani-forces-enter-third-district-under-nagorno-karabakh-truce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/11\/30\/azerbaijani-forces-enter-third-district-under-nagorno-karabakh-truce\/","title":{"rendered":"Azerbaijani Forces Enter Third District Under Nagorno-Karabakh Truce"},"content":{"rendered":"
BAKU — Azerbaijan says its forces have entered the Lachin district, the last of three handed back by Armenia as part of a deal that ended six weeks of fighting over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.<\/p>\n
“Units of the Azerbaijani Army entered the Lachin region on December 1” under the deal signed on November 9 by Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said in a statement<\/p>\n
Azerbaijan lost control of Lachin during a war with Armenia in the early 1990s as they transitioned into independent countries amid the breakup of the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n
Lachin was a strategic link between Armenia’s internationally recognized border and ethnic Armenian-held areas in Nagorno-Karabakh.<\/p>\n
Armenia agreed to hand over three districts ringing Nagorno-Karabakh — Agdam, Kalbacar, and Lachin — after nearly three decades under Armenian control as part of the Russian-brokered agreement signed earlier this month, halting military action in and around Nagorno-Karabakh following the worst fighting in the region since the 1990s.<\/p>\n