Azerbaijan seeks to renounce a 2020 Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement with Armenia and renew hostilities against Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), Karabakh President Arayik harutyunyan warned over the weekend.
In an August 6 interview with Nagorno-Karabakh’s Public Television, Harutiunian also cautioned Armenia against taking any steps that would “question the self-determination” of Karabakh Armenians. RFE/RL Armenian Service reports.
Speaking about the current blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan Harutiunian claimed that it was already a siege warfare employed by Baku.
“Azerbaijan continues to exert pressure to extract maximum [concessions]. Azerbaijan is seeking to hold Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians in some sense hostage, while simultaneously committing genocide and putting pressure on the Armenian authorities and international actors in terms of having a more privileged version of the Zangezur road,” the Karabakh leader said, referring to what Armenians perceive as Baku’s plans to get an extraterritorial corridor to its western Nakhichevan exclave via the southern part of Armenia.
In his latest interview Harutiunian said that Azerbaijan’s actions amounted to genocide. Baku routinely denies such claims.
Since December 12, 2022, the sole road connecting Nagorno Karabakh to Armenia – the Lachin Corridor – has been blocked by Azerbaijan. Baku tightened the blockade on June 15, 2023, banning emergency relief supplies that were carried out by Russian peacekeepers and the International Committee of the Red Cross through the sole road connecting Karabakh to Armenia and the outside world. The move aggravated the shortages of food, medicine and other essential items experienced by the region’s population.
