Azerbaijan plans to offer amnesty to Nagorno-Karabakh Armenian fighters who surrender their weapons, although some military units have announced they will continue resistance, an adviser to Azeri president Ilham Aliyev said.

Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians said on Thursday they needed guarantees of their safety before handing over their weapons, after Azerbaijan said it had retaken the breakaway region after a 24-hour military operation.

Aliyev had said on Wednesday that thanks to his iron fist the idea of ​​an independent enclave had passed into history and now the region would live “in paradise” as part of Azerbaijan.

Hikmet Hajiyev, a foreign policy adviser to the Azeri president, told Reuters that Baku was considering offering amnesty to Nagorno-Karabakh Armenian fighters who surrender their weapons.

“Regarding ex-servicemen and fighters, if they can be described as such, even for them we are considering amnesty,” he pointed out.

The rights of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians will be respected as part of their integration into Azerbaijan, Hajiyev added, noting that they have asked for humanitarian support, oil and gas. Three shipments of humanitarian aid will be delivered to the enclave today, he explained.

“Right now we see some army groups and individual officers publicly stating that they will not agree to our terms and will continue the resistance,” Aliyev’s adviser noted.

“We also see some small groups going into the forests,” he said. “But we don’t see that as the biggest challenge and a big security challenge. Of course it will raise some challenges and difficulties, but not on such a large scale,” he concluded.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but the majority of its inhabitants are Armenians.

Many of the enclave’s 120,000 Armenians believe they have been abandoned by Russia, the West and Armenia itself, while they have repeatedly complained that they fear being persecuted by the Azeris.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said his country was ready to accept refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh, but expressed hope that most would be able to stay in the enclave.

During a meeting of his cabinet he pointed out that Yerevan will accept refugees, but a mass resettlement can only take place if it is impossible for Armenians to remain in Nagorno-Karabakh.