Armenia’s U.N. Ambassador Mher Margarian asked for the meeting on the “dire situation in Nagorno-Karabakh” in a letter to the ambassador of the United States, which holds the Security Council presidency this month.
The U.S. Mission to the U.N. said Monday the emergency open meeting will take place on Wednesday afternoon, the Associated Press reported.
In his letter to Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Margarian said Azerbaijan’s complete blockade since June 15 of the Lachin Corridor – the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia – has created severe shortages of food, medicine and fuel.
Armenia’s move came after Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian leader Arayik Harutiunian appealed to the international community for “immediate action” to lift the de facto blockade imposed by Azerbaijan and prevent what he called “the genocide of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.”
Baku denies blockading Nagorno-Karabakh and offers an alternative route for supplies via Agdam, an Azerbaijani-controlled town situated east of the region. Stepanakert rejects the offer, saying that the closure of the Lachin corridor is a violation of the terms of the Moscow-brokered 2020 ceasefire agreement that the Armenian side insists places the vital route solely under the control of Russian peacekeepers.
Meanwhile, Armenia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan will be in New York to attend the emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.