At least 200 people have been killed in Karabakh as a result of an Azerbaijani military offensive and more than 400 have been wounded, a separatist Armenian human rights official in the breakaway region said on Wednesday.
Azerbaijan said earlier on Wednesday it had halted military action in Nagorno-Karabakh after its battlefield success forced Armenian separatist forces to agree to a ceasefire that will see the area fully return to Baku's control.
Prospects of cooperation, reconciliation, joint development
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Wednesday offered the ethnic Armenians of the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region and also neighboring Armenia the prospects of cooperation, reconciliation and joint development after his forces took control of the enclave.
In a televised address, he said Azerbaijan had regained full sovereignty over its territory and now wished to integrate Karabakh's population and turn the region into "paradise."
He said Azerbaijan had nothing against Karabakh's Armenian people - "they are our citizens" - but only against their "criminal" separatist leadership.
He also said Azerbaijan valued the fact that Armenia, on whose support Nagorno-Karabakh has relied for three decades, had not sought to intervene in Baku's military operation, but had remained "watchful." This improved the prospects for peace talks, he said.