YEREVAN, MARCH 24, ARTSAKHPRESS. Armenia is calling for a strong international engagement and pressure on Azerbaijan to unblock the Lachin corridor.
In an interview with the Egyptian AlQahera News Agency, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan stressed the imperative of a strong international engagement and pressure on Azerbaijan to implement the ICJ decision and lift the blockade. He said that Armenia has been calling for an urgent international fact-finding mission to be dispatched to Nagorno-Karabakh and the Lachin corridor to assess the situation on the ground.
“First of all, the blockade of the Lachin corridor by Azerbaijan is a blatant violation of the Trilateral Statement of 9 November 2020 which envisages that Azerbaijan ‘shall guarantee safe movement of citizens, vehicles and cargo in both directions along the Lachin corridor’. One would think that a legally binding decision of the International Court of Justice, which was adopted on February 22, could have resolved the situation as the Court ordered Azerbaijan to take all necessary measures to ensure unimpeded movement along the Lachin corridor. It is regrettable that so far the decision has not been implemented,” FM Mirzoyan said.
He added that the Lachin Corridor isn’t only a road, but rather a 5km wide security zone.
“Furthermore, I would like to emphasize that the Lachin corridor is not only a road, but a 5 km security zone. Thus, the sabotage attack of March 5 in the Lachin corridor, which I mentioned earlier, violated not only the ceasefire agreement, but also the contact line and the security zone of the corridor.In current circumstances, I would like to stress the imperative of strong international engagement and pressure on Azerbaijan to implement the ICJ decision and lift the blockade. Armenia has been calling for an urgent international fact-finding mission to be dispatched to Nagorno-Karabakh and the Lachin corridor to assess the situation on the ground. It’s also not a secret that the proposal of such a mission was repeatedly rejected by the Azerbaijani side, clearly showing the absence of willingness of Azerbaijani leadership to be transparent and accountable towards the international community,” the Armenian Foreign Minister said.
The United Nations’ highest court – the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – ordered Azerbaijan on February 22 to “take all steps at its disposal” to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions.
