Azerbaijan on Tuesday submitted to court a criminal case involving 15 detained Armenian separatist leaders accused of war crimes following Baku's recapture of the mountainous enclave last year.
Azerbaijan retook control of its breakaway Armenian-populated region of Karabakh following a lighting offensive in September 2023, ending three decades of control by Armenian separatists.
Several secessionist leaders were arrested in the aftermath as the region's entire ethnic-Armenian population -- more than 100,000 people -- fled to Armenia.
The criminal case concerning alleged crimes "committed with the full support of the Republic of Armenia and its Armed Forces has been submitted to court", the office of Azerbaijan's prosecutor general said in a statement.
The statement said the case involves "15 individuals and 2,548 episodes" of "planning, preparing, and initiating" numerous alleged war crimes, the statement said.
It said the charges included "waging an aggressive war" and "deportation or forced displacement of the population".
Karabakh's former separatist presidents, Arkady Ghukasyan, Bako Sahakyan and Araik Harutyunyan are among those to face trial in Baku, the statement added.
Armenia has condemned the separatist leaders' arrests and demanded their liberation.
Yerevan's foreign ministry has said the country "will take all possible steps to protect the rights of the illegally arrested representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh, including in international courts".
Another separatist leader, Ruben Vardanyan -- a reported billionaire, who headed the region's self-styled government between November 2022 and February 2023 -- remains in pre-trial detention in Baku.
Separatist authorities in the breakaway region agreed to disarm, dissolve their government and reintegrate with Azerbaijan following Baku's one-day military operation in late September last year.
Since then, Baku and Yerevan have held peace talks, with both Caucasus archfoe neighbours saying that a comprehensive peace treaty is within reach.