Visiting Baku, Lavrov said traffic through the Lachin corridor must be regulated in strict conformity with a 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani agreement that placed it under the control of Russian peacekeepers stationed in Karabakh.
“It calls for the free movement of solely civilian and humanitarian cargo and civilians,” Lavrov said after talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov. “In our contacts, we are trying to achieve that first and foremost through the peacekeeping contingent. The setting up of any checkpoint there is not envisaged.”
“But it is possible to dispel, by technical means, suspicions that the corridor is not functioning as intended. We discussed that today,” he said.
Lavrov alluded to Azerbaijani allegations that Armenia shipped landmines to Karabakh through the corridor in breach of the 2020 ceasefire brokered by Moscow.
Both Yerevan and Stepanakert have strongly denied the allegations voiced both before and after Azerbaijani government-backed protesters blocked Karabakh’s land link with the outside world on December 12. The Armenian side views the blockade as a gross violation of the truce accord.
Lavrov called for a “swift and full unblocking of traffic along the Lachin corridor” during a January 17 phone call with Bayramov. He said the following day that Moscow told Baku that the Russian peacekeepers “can check each vehicle for the absence of prohibited, non-humanitarian, non-civilian goods in it.”
The blockade has still not been lifted. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said last week that Baku wants to set up a checkpoint on Karabakh’s lifeline road in order to ensure its “transparent” functioning. Yerevan rejected the idea.