Azerbaijan issues arrest warrant for former separatist Nagorno-Karabakh leader

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 largely populated by ethnic Armenians, between May 2020 and last month. 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 region following three decades of conflict and an offensive last month that has prompted a large-scale exodus of the region’s ethnic Armenian inhabitants.