Vehicles loaded with humanitarian aid entered the Nagorno-Karabakh region on Monday, following an agreement between Armenian separatists, Azerbaijani authorities said, in a first step towards reducing tension in the region.
“The simultaneous passage of Red Cross vehicles was guaranteed” through the Lachin corridor, the only road that connects Armenia with this separatist territory, populated mainly by Armenians, and through the Aghdam highway, which connects Nagorno Karabakh with the rest of Azerbaijan, Hikmet Hajiev, the advisor to the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliev, said on social media.
The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed in a statement that, thanks to “a humanitarian consensus among those responsible”, it is “delivering wheat flour and essential medical products” to Nagorno-Karabakh via both routes.
The inhabitants of the enclave “urgently need lasting aid through regular humanitarian shipments,” said the regional director of the Red Cross in Europe and Central Asia.
In a press release, Ariane Bauer stated that the consensus reached between Baku and the separatists allowed Red Cross teams to “resume this vital work.”
Armenia accused Azerbaijan of causing a humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh by blocking the Latchin corridor in 2022.
The Latchin corridor is managed by soldiers from a Russian peacekeeping mission, as part of a Russian-brokered ceasefire signed between Baku and Yerevan in 2020.
Baku rejected these accusations and stated that Nagorno-Karabakh could receive all the help it needs through Azerbaijan.
On September 13, Baku declared itself willing to allow the “regular” passage of Red Cross humanitarian aid to the Nagorno-Karabakh region, accusing “local Armenian authorities” of blocking access.
Nagorno-Karabakh separatist authorities said Sunday that “mediators” are “working to organize a meeting with official representatives of Artsakh, [a autoproclamada república arménia] to alleviate the tense humanitarian and security situation in the republic”.
The European Union and the United States had requested the reopening of the Latchin corridor and the Aghdam highway for the passage of humanitarian aid, while Nagorno-Karabakh suffers from shortages of medicines and food.
This crisis and Baku’s deployment of armed forces near Nagorno-Karabakh and along the border with Armenia raise fears of a new conflict.
At the end of the last war, which in autumn 2020 saw Armenia lose territory it had controlled since the 1990s, the two countries failed to reach a peace agreement, despite mediation efforts by the European Union, the United States and Russia.
Source: TSF
