Lebanese-Armenians clash with police during Karabakh protest outside Azerbaijan embassy

Lebanese Armenians clashed with security forces during a protest outside Azerbaijan’s embassy in Lebanon on Thursday after Baku’s lightning offensive last week saw it recapture the long-disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The demonstration, organised by the Lebanese Armenian Tashnag party, saw crowds gather outside the Azeri mission in the mountain town of Ain Aar, northeast of Beirut.

Protesters came face to face with riot police as they threw stones, sticks and fireworks at the embassy.

Riot police used teargas to disperse the protesters after briefly clashing with them, local media said.

A number of injuries on both sides were reported.

تجمع لـ #حزب "#الطاشناق" أمام #سفارة جمهورية #أذربيجان إحتجاجاً على تجدد #الإشتباكات في اقليم ناغورنو #كاراباخ pic.twitter.com/sCtFJmyQFJ

— Lebanon Debate (@lebanondebate) September 28, 2023

تجمع لـ #حزب "#الطاشناق" أمام #سفارة جمهورية #أذربيجان إحتجاجاً على تجدد #الإشتباكات في اقليم ناغورنو #كاراباخ pic.twitter.com/xBEVSCHVir

— Lebanon Debate (@lebanondebate) September 28, 2023

"We’ve come here to say to them [Azerbaijan] that you are criminals, your Turkish brothers are criminals, you are committing the crime of ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity, you are ethnically cleansing the Armenian Artsakh region," Tashnag leader and MP Hagop Pakradounian said in comments to the local Spot Shot media outlet.

Artsakh is the Armenian name given to Nagorno-Karabakh. Turkey and Azerbaijan are strong allies.

"Today, 120,000 Armenians were subject to killing, rape, destruction, expulsion, and the world is silent," he added.

The lawmaker even attacked the Lebanese government for protecting Azerbaijan’s embassy, claiming that it was practising double standards by criminalising any collaboration with Israel when Azerbaijan’s military was supported by Israel.

He said the international community, including the US and Russia, remained silent on Baku’s siege of Nagorno-Karabakh after Azeri forces blocked the Lachin Corridor.

Lebanon has a significantly large Armenian community, although many have left in recent years due to the unprecedented economic crisis and the 2020 Beirut Port explosion, choosing to obtain Armenian citizenship and move to Armenia.

Nagorno-Karabakh's longstanding ambition for separation from Azerbaijan ended on Thursday with a decree declaring that the ethnic Armenian statelet in Azerbaijan "ceases to exist" at the end of the year.

The dramatic announcement was issued moments after it became clear that more than half of the ethnic Armenian population has fled in the wake of last week's assault by arch-rival Azerbaijan.

Baku's decisive 24-hour military blitz ended with a truce in which the rebels pledged to disarm and enter "reintegration" talks.

Protests continued in Armenia’s capital Yerevan against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who Armenians accused of making huge concessions to Azerbaijan and betraying his country.