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Azerbaijan Extends Deadline for Armenia to Withdraw from Key District

RFE/RL's Armenian Service

   Azerbaijan has agreed to extend a deadline for Armenia to withdrawal
   from a district as part of a peace agreement that ended a six-week war
   over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.

   "Azerbaijan agreed to prolong the deadline for the withdrawal from
   Kalbacar of Armenian armed forces and of illegal Armenian settlers
   until November 25," Hikmat Hajiyev, an aide to Azerbaijani President
   Ilham Aliyev, told a news conference in Baku on Sunday.

   He said Aliyev had agreed on "humanitarian grounds" to grant an
   Armenian request for the delay following mediation by Russian President
   Vladimir Putin.

   Armenia was due to complete its withdrawal from Kalbacar (known as
   Karvachar in Armenian) on November 15.

   Hajiyev said the timetable for the Armenian withdrawal from the Aghdam
   region on November 20 and the Lachin district by December 1 remains
   unchanged.

   Residents of Kalbacar, a district in Azerbaijan that was controlled for
   decades by ethnic Armenians, have been leaving their homes since the
   peace deal was signed on November 10.

   Some residents set their homes on fire before leaving, RFE/RL's
   Armenian Service reported.

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