In a statement, a Karabakh government body said that a pipeline supplying gas from Armenia and passing through Azerbaijani-controlled territory was again blocked by Baku early in the afternoon more than one month after Azerbaijani government-backed protesters blocked Karabakh’s land link with Armenia
“Azerbaijan is continuing its actions aimed at ethnically cleansing Artsakh,” an aide to Ruben Vardanyan, the Karabakh premier, wrote on Facebook.
Vardanyan held an emergency meeting in Stepanakert of a Karabakh task force dealing with economic and other consequences of the continuing blockade. An official statement on the meeting said they discussed “ensuring uninterrupted operation of vital facilities” cut off from gas. It said Vardanyan instructed Karabakh officials to find “alternative ways” of supporting those facilities and meeting “the minimum needs of the population.”
The local gas operator Artsakhgas reported later in the day that gas is again flowing to Karabakh from Armenia. It said it is now making technical preparations for swiftly resuming gas supplies to Karabakh households.
The vital gas supplies were already disrupted on December 13 the day after the closure of the sole road connecting Karabakh to Armenia. They were restored three days later.
Supplies of electricity from Armenia to Karabakh were similarly blocked by Azerbaijan on January 10, leading to serious power shortages in the Armenian-populated territory. The resulting daily power cuts have hit particularly hard local residents using electricity to heat their homes. The absence of natural gas would only aggravate the problem.
Nagorno-Karabakh - A food shop in Stepanakert, January 9, 2023.
“We don’t know what to think because wood stoves are becoming the only option,” Nona Baghdasarian, a Stepanakert resident, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service before the restoration of the gas supply announced by the authorities.
Karabakh is also grappling with growing food shortages resulting from the blockade. Later this week, the authorities will start rationing some basic foodstuffs to ensure their even distribution to the population. Every local resident is to receive one liter of sunflower oil and one kilogram of rice, macaroni, buckwheat and sugar a month.
Karabakh food stores now mostly sell bread, milk and other dairy products made by local farmers and firms.
“Even bread is not always available,” said Baghdasarian. “As for dairy products, only those who line up [outside shops] before 9 a.m. may manage to buy some of them.”
The United States, the European Union as well as Russia have repeatedly urged the Azerbaijani side to unblock the Lachin Corridor. Baku has dismissed their calls and defended Azerbaijani protesters continuing to occupy a section of the corridor on ostensibly environmental grounds.