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Under the agreement, confirmed by both sides and effective from
1 pm (0900 GMT) on Wednesday, separatist forces will disband and
disarm and talks on the future of the region and the ethnic
Armenians who live there will start on Thursday.
Separatists running the self-styled "Republic of Artsakh" said
they had been forced to agree to Azerbaijan's terms - relayed by
Russian peacekeepers - after Baku's army broke through their
lines and seized a number of strategic locations while the world
did nothing.
"The authorities of the Republic of Artsakh accept the proposal
from the command of the Russian peacekeeping contingent to cease
fire," they said in a statement.
Azerbaijan confirmed a ceasefire deal had been reached.
The outcome would appear to pave the way for Azerbaijan to
integrate around 120,000 ethnic Armenians into its society - a
prospect some Armenians say they fear - and to take full control
of a mountainous area that has been at the centre of two wars
since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.
Armenia, which says it has no military forces in Karabakh
despite Azerbaijani assertions, did not intervene militarily. It
has accused Baku of trying to ethnically cleanse Karabakh,
something Azerbaijan has denied.
It was unclear how many ethnic Armenians would opt to stay in
Karabakh or whether there would be a large exodus to Armenia.
Azerbaijan's military operation, in which dozens were killed and
hundreds injured, faced sharp criticism from the United States
and some European countries.
They said the Karabakh problem should have been solved through
talks and that Baku's actions were worsening an already dire
humanitarian situation on the ground.
Azerbaijan sent troops backed by artillery strikes into Karabakh
on Tuesday in an attempt to bring the breakaway region to heel
by force, raising the threat of a new war with its neighbour
Armenia.
It acted after what it called a series of provocations and after
some of its troops were killed in what Baku said were attacks
launched by separatists from the mountainous region, which
Azerbaijan had blockaded for nine months.
(Writing by Andrew Osborn in London and Guy Faulconbridge in
Moscow; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Jon Boyle)
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