Ceasefire monitoring centre in Nagorno-Karabakh shuts as Russian peacekeepers withdraw

Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Sergei Istrakov, Chief of the General Staff of Azerbaijan's Army Kerim Veliyev and Chief of Staff of the Land Forces of the Turkish Armed Forces Levent Ergun take part in a ceremony closing the Turkish-Russian Joint Monitoring Centre in the course of peacekeeping troops' withdrawal from the territory of Karabakh region and areas nearby, in Aghdam District, Azerbaijan, April 26, 2024. REUTERS/Aziz Karimov

AGDAM, Azerbaijan (Reuters) - The Russian and Turkish flags were lowered on Friday to mark the closure of a centre set up to monitor a ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh, as Russian peacekeepers ended a multi-year deployment in the strategic South Caucasus region.

Nearly 2,000 Russian peacekeeping troops were dispatched to the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh in November 2020 under a Moscow-brokered deal that halted six weeks of fighting between Azerbaijani and ethnic Armenian forces.