INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Russian peacekeepers on Wednesday completed their withdrawal from the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Baku recaptured last year from Armenian
control of the then-breakaway enclave."The process of the full withdrawal of the manpower, weapons, and equipment of Russia's peacekeeping
withdrawal, which began in April, had been agreed between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev.Last
September, Baku took over the territory in a lightning offensive that triggered a refugee crisis
Almost the entire local population of around 100,000 ethnic Armenians left for Armenia, fearing reprisals and repression
The peacekeeping contingent did not intervene.The territory is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan despite historically being
home to a majority Armenian population
It was controlled by pro-Yerevan separatists for nearly three decades.The conflict has seen ties sour between traditional allies Russia and
Armenia, with Yerevan accusing the Kremlin of failing to protect it in the face of a security threat from Azerbaijan.After the loss of
Karabakh, Yerevan has sought to forge new security alliances by deepening ties with the West.On Tuesday, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat
Mirzoyan and the United States Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia James O'Brien issued a joint statement saying Washington
and Yerevan have agreed to "upgrade the status of our bilateral dialogue to a Strategic Partnership Commission".Last month, Yerevan returned
to Azerbaijan four frontier villages that it had captured in the 1990s.The move, which Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has defended as aimed
at securing a definitive peace deal with Baku, sparked a wave of mass protests in Armenia.
