Pressure is increasing again in the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan announced on Tuesday, July 11, the suspension of road traffic in the Lachin corridor, the only road linking Armenia to this piece of separatist territory, at the heart of a more than thirty-year-old conflict between Baku and Yerevan.
Azerbaijan says it took this step because “multiple smuggling attempts”, via this checkpoint, by vehicles belonging to the Armenian branch of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The border guards claim in particular to have seized, between the 1er and on July 5, a dozen mobile phones and hundreds of cigarette packets during search operations in these vehicles and accused the NGO of not having taken measures to prevent these “illegal actions”. The border post must remain closed until the end of the “necessary investigations”, they specified. A criminal investigation has been opened.
The ICRC immediately denied this, saying that“no unauthorized merchandise found” in a vehicle belonging to him. The Geneva-based organization, however, added “regret that four drivers, who had been mandated, tried to [son] unknowingly transporting commercial goods in their own vehicles, which temporarily displayed the ICRC emblem”. ” These persons, she claimed, were not ICRC staff and their service contracts were immediately terminated. »
Humanitarian crisis caused
Since December 2022, tensions have multiplied around this road axis. Yerevan accuses its historical enemy of obstructing supplies to the breakaway region and of deliberately creating a humanitarian crisis by blocking the corridor, causing shortages of food and medicine. For their part, the Azerbaijani authorities deny any responsibility. In April, however, they announced that they had installed, for reasons “safe”a checkpoint providing access from Armenia to the Lachin Corridor.
In June, the Armenian branch of the Red Cross sounded the alarm and announced that medical deliveries to Nagorno-Karabakh hospitals as well as the transport of seriously ill patients had been suspended through the corridor. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan accused Baku of wanting to commit a “ethnic cleansing” In the region.
The announcement on Tuesday of the suspension of road traffic by Baku risks straining the ongoing negotiations between the two countries which have been intensifying for several months, with parallel diplomatic initiatives led by the European Union (EU) and the UNITED STATES. Talks are expected to continue in July, mediated by the EU.
You have 35.88% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.