A truck carrying 15 tons of food and other essential items provided by the Russian Red Cross entered Karabakh from the Azerbaijani town of Aghdam, a supply route which Baku has been promoting as an alternative to the Lachin corridor connecting Karabakh to Armenia.
The authorities in Stepanakert have opposed that route until now, saying that it would legitimize the nine-month Azerbaijan blockade of the Lachin corridor. They indicated at the weekend that they agreed to accept the Russian aid through the Aghdam road in return for an Azerbaijani pledge to allow Russian peacekeepers and the International Committee of the Red Cross (IRCR) to resume humanitarian supplies through the corridor.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that Baku is ready to do that “parallel” to the opening of the second, Azerbaijani-controlled supply line.
The Russian Foreign Ministry reported later in the day an agreement on the “parallel unblocking of the Lachin and Aghdam routes.” The ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said Moscow expects that “humanitarian aid will flow to the region unhindered in both directions on a regular basis.”
Such a compromise arrangement is also favored by the United States and the European Union. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reaffirmed support for it in a weekend statement that expressed serious concern at the “rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.”
It is not clear whether Karabakh’s leadership remains adamant in rejecting any aid offered by the Azerbaijani government. Scores of Karabakh Armenians have been blocking a local road leading to Aghdam to prevent two Azerbaijani trucks loaded with 40 tons of flour from entering the region.
Azerbaijan tightened the blockade in mid-June by halting all humanitarian traffic through the Lachin corridor. The move seriously aggravated shortages of food, medicine and other basic necessities in Karabakh, forcing the authorities there to start rationing bread in Stepanakert last week. Each local resident has since been able to buy only half a loaf of bread a day.