Azerbaijan assures that it is provisional. The country’s border guards announced in a statement on Tuesday July 11 that they had suspended “temporarily” traffic in the Lachin corridor, the only road linking Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. The border guards motivated this measure by “multiple smuggling attempts” with vehicles belonging to the Armenian branch of the Red Cross through this checkpoint. They add that a criminal investigation has been opened and that the border post will be closed until the end of “necessary investigative measures”.
Since December 2022, Armenia has accused its neighbor of hindering supplies to the breakaway region and creating a humanitarian crisis there by blocking this corridor. Initially, Baku claimed that Azerbaijani environmental activists were blocking the road to expose illegal mines. In April, Azerbaijan then announced that it had installed, on grounds “safe”this checkpoint giving access from Armenia to the Lachin corridor.
At the end of June, the Armenian branch of the Red Cross announced that medical deliveries to Nagorno-Karabakh hospitals as well as transport of seriously ill patients had been suspended through the corridor.
The two countries have been fighting over the region since the late 1980s, resulting in two wars, the last of which, in 2020, saw the defeat of Armenian forces and significant territory gains for Azerbaijan. Part of the enclave, located in Azerbaijan, remains under the control of Armenian separatists, but it is now surrounded by territories held by Baku. Armenia also accuses Russian peacekeepers, deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh since the end of 2020, of failing in their obligation to ensure traffic on the Lachin corridor.