Armenia Parliament lifts martial law by vote of 118 to 1 ahead of June Elections

The National assembly of Armenia has lifted the martial law by a vote of 118 to 1 and one abstention reports Armenian news agency Arka. The law was declared after Azerbaijan's aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh during last September. The motion was submitted by the two opposite parties- The Bright Armenia and The Prosperous Armenia. Both the parties argued that the law was no longer necessary. 

The war in the Nagorno-Karabakh region stopped after Russia brokered a ceasefire on November 10, 2020. The conflict began in September 2020, bringing the issue back into the limelight. More than thousands of people have been displaced since then. Both the former Soviet nations have blamed each other for the fresh round of artillery firings, considered the worst flare-up the region has seen so far.

About the conflict 

Around 414 Russian peacekeepers were deployed into the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and the Lachin corridor who had prior experience in performing tasks to support and protect humanitarian operations in Syria. Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Federation, Colonel-General Sergei Rudskoy, in a briefing informed that 16 observation posts were set up to monitor the implementation of the ceasefire and military operations. The deployment of Russian peacekeepers in the region was in accordance with the Moscow-brokered ceasefire agreement signed between the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan a day before.

While internationally, the Nagorno-Karabakh region is recognised as a de jure part of Azerbaijan, Armenians claim that the region was a part of their kingdom from the fourth century BCE. Joseph Stalin decided to make the Nagorno-Karabakh region an autonomous oblast of Azerbaijan. The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region flared up soon after the breakdown of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan have claimed the strategic territory, with occasional flare-ups and fightings.

(Image Credits: AP)