YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARTSAKHPRESS. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that the gas and electricity supply cut-off by Azerbaijan has led to an environmental crisis in Nagorno Karabakh.
Speaking at the Cabinet meeting, PM Pashinyan said that Azerbaijan again cut off gas supply into Nagorno Karabakh on February 8, a day after the supply had been restored, and before that Azerbaijan had reopened the pipeline seven days ago after shutting it down four days before that.
“Since December 12, Azerbaijan shut down Nagorno Karabakh’s gas supply seven times. Furthermore, this statistics doesn’t reflect the entire picture because various events take place in between the shutdowns and restoration of gas supply. For example, gas supply is being shut down not entirely, but 30%, then the volume of supplied gas reaches 70%, then drops to 10%, then it becomes 30%, then it gets restored completely, then again drops to 40% and so on. Such kind of commotion can happen several times in a day or once in several days. Furthermore, this already aren’t the so-called “environmentalists”, but rather an action done by the state, because if the “environmentalists” are present and visible in the Lachin corridor, they haven’t been seen in the gas pipeline.
Since December 12, 2022 Azerbaijan carried out 27 similar actions with the gas supply pipeline of Nagorno Karabakh,” Pashinyan said.
PM Pashinyan said that the illegal blockade of the Lachin corridor by Azerbaijan under the guise of “environmental” campaign has led to real environmental problems in Nagorno Karabakh because Azerbaijan has shut down electricity transmission into Nagorno Karabakh and Nagorno Karabakh authorities are carrying out rolling blackouts for 6, 8, 10 hours every day because local electric energy production capacities are insufficient.
“In these conditions our compatriots in Nagorno Karabakh are forced to use wood for heating, which in turn leads to forest cutting, which has a potential to become a serious environmental disaster, especially if we take into account the snowfalls in Nagorno Karabakh and that temperature at nighttime drops minus five degrees Celsius. This once again exposes Azerbaijan’s false environmental goals because the illegal blockade of the Lachin corridor by Azerbaijan has led to an environmental crisis in addition to a humanitarian crisis,” the Armenian PM said.
Pashinyan said Azerbaijan’s actions seek to break the Nagorno Karabakh people’s will to live in their own homeland. “Thus, we must further increase our efforts to bring international attention on the humanitarian, and now also environmental crisis in Nagorno Karabakh, which is the consequence of Azerbaijan’s aggressive and provocative actions,” PM Pashinyan said.
Pashinyan thanked the international organizations and countries who have expressed objective stance on the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno Karabakh.
“I think it is necessary to make the illegal blockade of Lachin corridor, the humanitarian and environmental crisis in Nagorno Karabakh a more institutional international discussion topic, because the only option for restraining Azerbaijan’s aggressiveness and provocative conduct is the non-decreasing activeness of the international community,” he said.
