The agreement was part of a ceasefire deal that stopped the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Lavrov mentioned it in comments to Russian state television posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website on Monday.
“As for transport routes passing through Armenia’s Syunik province, it is the Armenian leadership that is sabotaging the agreement carrying Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s signature,” he charged. “It is difficult to understand the meaning of such a position.”
Lavrov did not comment on other provisions of the truce accord that committed Azerbaijan to halting its military operations and led to the deployment of Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh and the Lachin corridor connecting the region to Armenia. The peacekeepers did not intervene when Baku blocked the corridor in November 2022 and launched in September 2023 a large-scale military offensive that forced Karabakh’s entire population to flee to Armenia.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Ani Badalian, hit back at Lavrov, saying that he is calling into question Russia’s “constructive involvement” in Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks. Badalian said the minister “cannot fail to see that there is not a single key point of that [2020 ceasefire] statement that has not been irrevocably violated.”
“We also believe the Russian foreign minister is well aware that apart from publicized documents, Armenia is not a party to any other agreement and therefore cannot sabotage them,” she added in written comments.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have disagreed, at least until now, on practical modalities of opening their border to commerce and travel. Baku wants people and goods moving between Nakhichevan to the rest of Azerbaijan to be exempt from Armenian border controls.
The Armenian side insists, for its part, that the two South Caucasus states should have only conventional transport links guaranteeing their full control over all transit routes passing through their respective territories. Its Crossroads of Peace project unveiled last year would serve this purpose.
Badalian urged Moscow not to “sabotage” the Western-backed project and broader efforts to end the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict with “biased statements.”
Lavrov’s statement was made public during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s state visit to Azerbaijan that underlined Moscow’s seemingly cordial rapport with Baku contrasting with its mounting tensions with Yerevan. Speaking in the Azerbaijani capital, Putin said Russia remains ready to help Armenia and Azerbaijan negotiate a peace treaty and delineate their border.