Last week, the International Court of Justice issued a landmark ruling on the illegal blockade of the Lachine Corridor, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan reminded at the start of the Government sitting on July 13. He emphasized that based on Armenia's application, the court reaffirmed the legally binding decision made on February 22 of this year, by which it obliged Azerbaijan to take all measures at its disposal to ensure unhindered movement of people, vehicles and cargo in two directions through Lachin Corridor.
"With such a decision, the court actually stated that Azerbaijan did not comply with the decision of February 22 of this year, otherwise there would be no need to reaffirm the previous decision. This is an important nuance.
In paragraph 28 of the decision of July 6, the court, referring to the information provided to it by the Armenian side that the so-called action of environmentalists is no longer taking place, but even now movement through the Lachin Corridor is interrupted due to the installation of a checkpoint by Azerbaijan, noted that the essence of the matter is not from this didn't change, because the consequences of the interruption of movement through the Lachin Corridor for the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh are the same as in February 2022. Therefore, the court's approach and the legally binding decision also remain the same", he said.
Pashinyan also noticed that, nevertheless, there are some nuanced differences in the court's February 22 and July 6 decisions on the same content.
"...Because if the Government of Azerbaijan said in February that the environmental action was not organized by it and it was a spontaneous action of civil society, now it does not have the opportunity to say something like that, because now the Lachin Corridor is blocked exclusively due to the actions of state institutions of Azerbaijan, and therefore, the decision of the International Court of Justice reaffirms and further strengthens the responsibility of the Government of Azerbaijan for the deepening humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh", he said.
