Azerbaijan issues arrest warrant for former separatist Nagorno-Karabakh leader

Azerbaijani police arrested a former prime minister earlier this week, as he tried to cross into Armenia with tens of thousands of others who have fled the region (Vasily Krestyaninov/AP)

Azerbaijan has issued an arrest warrant for former Nagorno-Karabakh separatist leader Arayik Harutyunyan, the country’s prosecutor general has said.

Mr Harutyunyan led the breakaway region, which is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but largely populated by ethnic Armenians, between May 2020 and last month, when the separatist government said it would dissolve itself by the end of the year after a three-decade bid for independence.