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Azerbaijan blocks trucks with emergency food aid from Armenia

Politiko 2023-07-28 15:28:06

A convoy of 19 Armenian trucks that Yerevan says is carrying emergency food aid to the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh region is stuck at a checkpoint in Azerbaijan on July 27 and 28 after Azerbaijani authorities refuse to allow it to enter through the Lachin corridor. .

The Lachin Corridor is the only road connecting Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh, and it has been blocked by Baku for more than seven months.

The Armenian government said on July 25 that it will try to send 360 tons of flour, cooking oil, sugar and other staples to Nagorno-Karabakh to ease the food crisis there caused by the blockade. Armenian officials expressed hope that Russian peacekeepers would help ease the crisis.

But Vardan Sargsyan, a representative of Nagorno-Karabakh separatists, told media late on July 27 that no progress had been made and that the Russian side had not yet responded to the request.

The trucks reached the entrance to the Lachin Corridor late on July 26, but were stuck there for the next several hours after Baku refused to let them pass through a checkpoint set up there in April.

In a statement, Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry described the delivery of the trucks as a "provocation" and said it was an attack on Azerbaijan's territorial integrity. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian defended the attempt to send humanitarian aid.

"We cannot turn a blind eye to the situation the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh are currently facing," Pashinian tweeted. "The 360 tons of food sent to Nagorno-Karabakh have exclusively humanitarian purposes."

Azerbaijan earlier this month suspended traffic through a checkpoint on the corridor after it said "various types of contraband" had been detected in Red Cross vehicles coming from Armenia.

The traffic suspension raised concerns about a humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh. Both Armenia and separatist authorities in the area have said Azerbaijan has blockaded the territory since December, resulting in shortages of food, medicine and energy.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous enclave populated mainly by Armenians that is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. The most recent war lasted six weeks in late 2020 and left 7,000 soldiers on both sides dead.

As a result of the war, Azerbaijan regained control over part of Nagorno-Karabakh and some surrounding areas. The war ended with a ceasefire brokered by Russia, under which Moscow deployed around 2,000 troops to serve as peacekeepers./REL