Just two weeks after the 15 July EU-facilitated meeting between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Brussels, Yerevan and Baku find themselves once again in a standoff on the Lachin Corridor, the 5 km-wide highway that connects Armenia through Azerbaijan with the besieged former Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO).  

Just two weeks after the 15 July EU-facilitated meeting between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Brussels, Yerevan and Baku find themselves once again in a standoff on the Lachin Corridor, the 5 km-wide highway that connects Armenia through Azerbaijan with the besieged former Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO).

 

Since 12 December last year, the mainly ethnic Armenian-populated breakaway region has had this strategic artery through Lachin disrupted and restricted by Baku in continued attempts by Azerbaijan to have its territorial integrity not only restored but also recognised by both Yerevan and Karabakh’s de facto capital, Stepanakert. While Prime Minister Pashinyan says he is ready to do this, Karabakh’s de facto leadership continues to resist.

 

Another sticking point has been the insistence of Yerevan, Brussels, Washington D.C., and now Moscow that the ethnic Armenian community of Karabakh and official Baku need to engage in direct dialogue. Stepanakert continues to refuse to do so while so far unconfirmed reports indicate that on 30 July Baku rejected another planned meeting apparently scheduled for 1 August.

 

As a result, the imposition of an Azerbaijani border and customs checkpoint at the beginning of the Lachin highway has led to severe shortages of many imported food, hygiene, and fuel products. Meanwhile, the periodic halting of humanitarian aid convoys delivered by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Russian peacekeeping contingent have also resulted in severe shortages of medical supplies.

 

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The full article can be read here. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Armenia and Azerbaijan made further progress towards a peace deal in the three-day US-hosted talks in late June, yet tensions persist in the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh. Read more in my recent piece for Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa. 

In early June in Chisinau, Moldova, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that the Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers, Ararat Mirzoyan and Jeyhun Bayramov, would meet again in Arlington, Virginia, on June 12. However, the meeting facilitated by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken only took place on June 27. Baku had requested a postponement the week before due to the visit of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, fresh from re-election, scheduled for June 12-13.

 

Despite the delay, there had initially been some hope that last week’s US-facilitated meeting could lead to a significant breakthrough, coming soon after last month’s meeting  between Azerbaijani President Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan at the European political summit in Chisinau. Indeed, on June 8, senior Armenian officers in uniform arrived in the Azerbaijani capital for a meeting of the commanders of the Commonwealth of Independent States border guard services.

 

However, such hopes were short-lived. On June 15, Armenian forces fired on a group of Azerbaijani soldiers who had hoisted their national flag at one end of the Hakari Bridge which now houses the Baku checkpoint at the start of the Lachin Corridor, the strategic link between Armenia and the remnants of the former Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Region that crosses into Azerbaijan’s sovereign territory, temporarily and ostensibly under the control of Russian peacekeepers.

 

In the absence of a properly demarcated border, such incidents are inevitable. Yet opposition activists in Armenia have also criticised  Yerevan for opening fire on Azerbaijani soldiers, claiming no warning shots were fired and that the only result of such an incident was the closure of the Lachin checkpoint and the imposition of what can now probably be considered a real blockade.

 

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“The population on the ground needs reassurances, first and foremost regarding their rights and security,” Charles Michel said following last weekend’s meeting. “In this context, I expressed the EU’s encouragement for direct dialogue between Baku and representatives of Armenians living in the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. This dialogue should provide much-needed confidence for all those involved.”

The full article can be read here.