For days, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian had let his main political partners speak, who did not hesitate to question Russia for its inability to put an end to the blockade imposed by Azerbaijan on Nagorno-Karabakh. But on the tenth day of a blockade that threatens the 120,000 Armenian inhabitants of Karabakh with a serious humanitarian crisis, Pashinian himself openly accused Russia, during the weekly meeting of the Council of Ministers Thursday, December 22 in Yerevan, of fail to fulfill the obligations to which it is bound under the terms of the ceasefire agreement it imposed on November 9, 2020 on the Azerbaijani and Armenian forces ending six weeks of war in Karabakh. Under this agreement, Russia had deployed a contingent of some 2,000 peacekeepers whose mission was to guarantee freedom of movement on the Lachin corridor, the only axis since the war linking Karabakh to Armenia. However, it is clear that the Russian peacekeepers have failed in their mission, since they are unable to dislodge the self-proclaimed environmental activists from Azeri who have blocked this road since December 12 and are taking hostage the population of Karabakh, with the backing of the authorities in Baku, of which they are clearly agents.
While Moscow, through the voice of its Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, and its spokesperson, Maria Sakharova, finally raises its voice and calls on Baku to lift this blockade and to comply with the terms of the ceasefire agreement -the fire of November 9, 2020, Pashinyan accuses Baku, but also Moscow, of not respecting the terms of this agreement, which places the Lachin corridor under the control of Russian peacekeepers and commits the Azeri side to guaranteeing a free access to this axis, as well as free movement between Armenia and Karabakh. “De facto, this means that the commitment entered into by this tripartite declaration [de cessez-le-feu], precisely to keep the Lachin Corridor under control, is also not respected by the Russian contingent of peacekeepers,” Pashinian insisted before members of his government. “Of course, all this is the consequence of Azerbaijan’s illegal actions, but it does not change the fact that the main objective of the Russian contingent is … to prevent such illegal actions from happening and to control the corridor of Lachin,” Pashinyan added. Moscow was quick to dismiss Pashinyan’s criticisms, through Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who claimed that Russian peacekeepers were acting “ strictly in accordance with the letter and the spirit” of the ceasefire agreement. “Russian peacekeepers are doing everything possible to ensure order and tranquility in the territories where they are deployed,” Peskov added, as quoted by the Russian News Agency. RIA Novosti. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova similarly insisted that Russian peacekeepers deployed in Karabakh “are fulfilling their mission”. “For those who don’t know, I would like to remind you that there have been several escalations of tensions there, and problems before, and the parties have blamed each other, and it is the peacekeepers Russians who did everything possible to stabilize the situation and succeeded. Also, such an attitude towards our peacekeepers cannot be accepted,” Zakharova told reporters, referring in thinly veiled terms to Armenian officials.
Two members of Armenia’s parliament representing Pashinyan’s party claimed last week that Moscow had ordered peacekeepers not to prevent or end the Azeri blockade in an effort to compel Yerevan to do more. more geopolitical concessions. Karabakh President Arayik Harutiunian for his part fiercely defended the Russian peacekeepers and praised their work, praising “ the concrete steps they were taking to “ alleviate the humanitarian problems of our people”. This vital axis has been blocked since December 12 by several groups of so-called Azeri environmental activists demanding that their government be allowed to inspect “illegal” mining operations in Karabakh. Baku, which supports their demands, asserts that the Azeri demonstrators have in no way blocked road traffic on this axis. A short video circulating on social media on Wednesday evening showed Azerbaijanis, some in fatigues, barring a Russian military convoy from passing through the corridor despite repeated requests from the Russian officer commanding the convoy. Moscow has constantly called for the reopening of the road. S. Lavrov again expressing this requirement to his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov, during a telephone conversation on Thursday, the day before the tripartite meeting which was to bring them together with their counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan, which caused the cancellation of the meeting by invoking the issue of the Lachin Corridor. But Moscow’s demands, echoing the efforts of Russian peacekeepers on the ground whom the Russian Defense Ministry says are trying daily to end this blockade, seem to have little effect on Baku, which openly humiliates the Russian contingent, even if it is party to this blockade, as some Armenian officials claim. Both the government of Armenia and that of Karabakh claim that Baku organized the blockade as part of its efforts to provoke an exodus of Armenians from Karabakh.
Moreover, the Ambassador of the Czech Republic in Yerevan, Petr Piruncik, indicated in an interview given this weekend to the Armenian Service of RFE/RL that Europe felt very concerned about the blockade of the Lachin corridor, not without insisting on the fact that Russia, first and foremost, was the guarantor of free movement on this vital axis, with the 2,000 soldiers of the Russian peacekeepers who are deployed in Karabakh, under the terms of the November 9, 2020 ceasefire agreement that it was able to impose on the belligerents. The Ambassador of the Czech Republic, who holds the rotating presidency of theEU until 1er January, when it will hand over the baton for six months to Sweden, also underlined that contrary to what some might think and say in Armenia, Europe had not forgotten the Armenians and would do everything possible to help the Armenia to address the serious security challenges it faces, but insisting that Europe “ can’t save » Armenia.
Pashinian blames Russia as Baku continues its blockade on the (…)