Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian visited Nagorno-Karabakh on Thursday to celebrate the 74th anniversary of the Soviet victory in World War II and Karabakh’s main public holiday.
The holiday is dedicated to the May 1992 capture by Karabakh Armenian forces of Shushi (Shusha), a formerly Azerbaijani-populated strategic town overlooking Stepanakert. The military operation proved crucial for the Armenian victory in the 1991-1994 war with Azerbaijan.
“The liberation of Shushi, the cradle of the Artsakh Armenians, was one of the most heroic and brilliant pages of our history,” Pashinian said in a statement issued on the occasion.
Thursday’s celebrations began with hundreds of people led by Pashinian and Bako Sahakian, the Karabakh president, marching to World War II and Karabakh war memorials in Stepanakert. They also laid flowers at a nearby military cemetery where scores of Karabakh Armenians killed in action were laid to rest.
The Armenian and Karabakh leaders then headed to Shushi where Sahakian hosted an official reception.
Pashinian and Sahakian held talks in Stepanakert after the official ceremonies. Their press offices gave no details of the talks.
The annual celebrations in Karabakh began on Wednesday. They were attended by Armenia’s Karabakh-born former President Serzh Sarkisian, who was the Armenian-populated territory’s top military commander at the start of the war. Sarkisian refused to answer questions from an RFE/RL reporter when he and Sahakian emerged from a state building in Stepanakert.
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