BAKU, September 28. /TASS/. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry has rejected Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's accusations that the Azerbaijani authorities have carried out ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh, the country’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Earlier, at a government meeting, Pashinyan opined that in the coming days there will be no Armenian population left in Karabakh. He said that "this is a direct action of ethnic cleansing and deportation."

"We strongly condemn and reject the statement of Nikol Pashinyan, Prime Minister of Armenia, dated September 28, 2023, on the alleged 'ethnic cleansing' of Armenian residents from the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan," the statement said.

As the ministry pointed out, the Armenian Prime Minister "not only backtracks from his statement of September 21" about the absence of any threat to local Armenians from Azerbaijan, but also seeks to disrupt "Azerbaijan’s efforts in humanitarian assistance and reintegration process, and undermines possible prospects of peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia."

On September 19, tensions flared up again in Nagorno-Karabakh. Baku announced it was launching what it described as "local anti-terrorist measures" and demanded the withdrawal of Armenian troops from the region. Yerevan, in turn, said there were no Armenian forces in Karabakh, calling what was happening "an act of large-scale aggression." Residents of the Armenian capital took to the streets to protest outside the Armenian government building, blaming the country’s leadership and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan for the situation.

Russia called on the conflicting sides to prevent civilian casualties and return to a diplomatic solution. On September 20, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry announced that an agreement had been reached in coordination with the Russian peacekeeping contingent to suspend the anti-terrorist operation in Nagorno-Karabakh as of 12:00 p.m. Moscow time. On September 21, representatives of Baku and the Armenian population of Karabakh met in the Azerbaijani city of Yevlakh "to discuss reintegration issues."

On September 24, some Karabakh residents began to leave for Armenia. A refugee reception center was opened in the Armenian town of Goris, in the Syunik Region, near the border, where thousands of refugees have already arrived.