Azerbaijan said today it had established a checkpoint on the only land route to the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, a move that was followed by claims of shelling on the border by Azerbaijani and Armenian forces.
Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but its 120,000 residents are predominantly ethnic Armenians and the region broke away from Baku in a war in the early 1990s.
Azerbaijan said it had set up a checkpoint on the road leading to Karabakh, a step it said was essential because it believed Armenia was using the road to transport weapons.
Azerbaijan “took appropriate measures to establish control at the starting point of the route,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Armenia said the checkpoint at the Hakari Bridge in the Lachin Corridor was a gross violation of the 2020 ceasefire agreement that ended that year’s war.
(SRNA)