Members of the Armenian opposition claim that Yerevan itself gave the green light to Baku to put the roadblock when Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian stated in the National Assembly last week that Armenia fully recognizes the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and expects Azerbaijan to do the same by recognizing the territorial integrity of the modern-day Republic of Armenia within its Soviet-era borders.
Pro-government head of the Armenian National Assembly’s Foreign Relations Committee Sargis Khandanian defended Pashinian’s remarks, insisting that, on the contrary, they were “constructive.”
“It is becoming clear that Armenia is the constructive party, and this is likely becoming visible to our international partners as well. This is also evidenced by, for example, very quick and targeted assessments by the U.S. State Department or the French Foreign Ministry after the situation emerged. And Armenia cannot abandon the peace process it has committed itself to, it cannot deviate from its goal of establishing stability in the region,” Khandanian said.
In separate statements issued on April 23, the United States and France, which along with Russia have spearheaded decades-long efforts to broker a solution to the protracted conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, have voiced their concerns about the developments in the Lachin Corridor, saying that an Azerbaijani checkpoint there undermines efforts to establish confidence in the peace process and damages the negotiation process.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell also assessed Azerbaijan’s installation of a checkpoint in the Lachin Corridor as an act “contrary to the EU’s call to reduce tensions.”
Meanwhile, Baku also cited statements from Yerevan on recognizing Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity in substantiating its decision to set up the checkpoint. Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in particular, referred to the agreements reached by the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan at their meetings in Prague and Sochi in October last year, describing the establishment of the checkpoint as a legal step.
The pro-government lawmaker in Yerevan said to this: “Armenia has always stated that the rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh should be addressed and that it should be done under conditions of international visibility. Therefore, such wording by Baku is manipulative. The latest statement in the National Assembly by Prime Minister Pashinian was also followed by a narrative about ensuring the rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh.”
The April 23 installation by Azerbaijan of the roadblock on the Lachin corridor, the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, completed the effective blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh that was established by a group of Azerbaijanis calling themselves environmental activists back in December.
Authorities in Yerevan and Stepanakert denounced the move, saying that it was in violation of the Moscow-brokered 2020 ceasefire agreement that designated the Lachin corridor along with the ethnic Armenian-controlled part of Nagorno-Karabakh as a sphere of Russian peacekeepers’ deployment.
Among other things, the new roadblock also cut four Karabakh villages from the rest of the region.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said on Monday that commanders of its peacekeeping force were in negotiations with the Azerbaijani side over the issue of the checkpoint that official Moscow sees as a “unilateral step” by Baku and calls it “unacceptable.”
Official Yerevan says that it continues to see a way out of the created situation only through diplomatic and political means, expecting additional efforts from Russia.
The pro-government Armenian lawmaker also said on Tuesday that any scenario of using force “has no prospect.” “Because Armenia does not imagine solving the issues in that way,” Khandanian said.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for years. Some 30,000 people were killed in a war in the early 1990s that left ethnic Armenians in control of the predominantly Armenian-populated region and seven adjacent districts of Azerbaijan proper.
Decades of internationally mediated talks failed to result in a diplomatic solution and the simmering conflict led to another war in 2020 in which nearly 7,000 soldiers were killed on both sides.
The six-week war in which Azerbaijan regained all of the Armenian-controlled areas outside of Nagorno-Karabakh as well as chunks of territory inside the Soviet-era autonomous oblast proper ended with a Russia-brokered cease-fire under which Moscow deployed about 2,000 troops to the region to serve as peacekeepers.