Azerbaijan issues warrant for former separatist leader as UN mission arrives in Nagorno-Karabakh

By AVET DEMURYAN
Associated Press

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Azerbaijan’s prosecutor general says the country has issued an arrest warrant for former Nagorno-Karabakh separatist leader Arayik Harutyunyan. Harutyunyan led the breakaway region, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but was largely populated by ethnic Armenians, between May 2020 and the beginning of September. Local media reported Sunday that Harutyunyan and the region’s former military commander are accused of firing missiles on Azerbaijan’s third-largest city, Ganja, during a war in late 2020. The announcement comes as Azerbaijan enforces its grip on the former breakaway state following three decades of conflict and an offensive last month that has prompted a large-scale exodus of the region’s ethnic Armenian inhabitants.