A regular Cabinet meeting was held today, chaired by Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Before discussing the issues on the agenda, the Head of the Government spoke about the aggravation of the humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh as a result of Azerbaijan's installation of an illegal checkpoint in the Lachin Corridor, and also referred to Azerbaijan's policy of ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh.
In his speech, Nikol Pashinyan, in particular, noted:
"Dear participants of the Cabinet meeting,
Dear people,
Azerbaijan's installation of an illegal checkpoint in the Lachin Corridor, the blockade of electricity and natural gas supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh, which has essentially been ongoing for 6 months, have extremely aggravated the humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh. And if during the previous month, for propaganda purposes, Azerbaijan provided some access through the Lachin Corridor through the Red Cross and Russian peacekeepers, since yesterday this access has also been brought to zero and even the supply of essential food to Nagorno Karabakh has been stopped. In other words, food does not enter Nagorno Karabakh from the outside world, and citizens in need of urgent medical assistance are not allowed to pass through the Lachin Corridor.
These actions once again substantiate our fear that Azerbaijan is conducting a policy of ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh. Although in this case it is not about fear, but about the start of actions. How else does the ethnic cleansing htake place: the supply of food, gas, and electricity to the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh is blocked, citizens doing agricultural work are being shooted at, the possibility of movement is blocked even for patients in extremely critical condition.
Dear partcipants of the Cabinet meeting,
Our response to this situation should include raising international awareness, not only at the level of organizations and foreign governments, but also at the level of societies, and our efforts in this direction must not decrease.
We also continue to believe that the Baku-Stepanakert dialogue within the framework of the international mechanism, necessary for ensuring the rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, is extremely important, and we should hope that concrete steps will be taken in this direction.
At the same time, no matter how difficult, our work towards the normalization of relations with Azerbaijan and establishment of peace must be continuous. We need to be consistent about this. In the near future, a meeting of the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan is planned in Washington, and I hope that certain progress recorded during the previous meeting in Washington will develop.
I also want to emphasize that especially after Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to recognize each other's territorial integrity, attempts to create tensions in different sections along the border are unacceptable and incomprehensible.
Now it is necessary to take the next step: to record the basis for delimitation and start the actual delimitation and demarcation works.
As for the unblocking of transport and economic communications of the region provided by the tripartite declaration of November 9, 2020, I reaffirm that Armenia is ready for this based on the principles of sovereignty, jurisdiction, reciprocity and equality of countries.
I emphasize again that any corridor logic through the territory of Armenia is unacceptable. In this sense, I expect that the international partners will avoid using the provocative vocabulary used by Azerbaijan. Thank you".
