Russian peacekeepers have set up roadblocks at the Aghdam-Stepanakert road
Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh have closed the Aghdam-Stepanakert road with barricades and barbed wire to prevent so-called assistance from Baku to enter Artsakh.
Azerbaijan announced that it was sending 40 tons of flour to Stepanakert via the unsanctioned road from Aghdam, while it continued its blockade of the Lachin Corridor.
Artsakh authorities rejected that assistances saying that it was yet another attempt by Baku to subjugate the people of Artsakh and mislead the international community.
Artsakh residents gather overnight at the entrance of the Aghdam-Stepanakert road
Videos posted on Russian Telegram social media platform show Russian peacekeepers blocking the part of the road where the Azeri trucks are now parked.
Angry Artsakh residents set up tents and converged at the entrance of the Stepanakert portion of the road to prevent the Azerbaijani trucks from entering Artsakh.
Azerbaijani authorities have been blockading a convoy of 29 trucks carrying humanitarian assistance from Armenia. On Wednesday another 10 trucks carrying assistance from various French region joined that convoy.
The Azerbaijanis have now crossed the checkpoint of the Russian peacekeepers and are trying to set up tents.“We are here to prevent the entry of so-called ‘humanitarian’ cargo into Artsakh. We don’t need the help they send. Let them open the Kashatagh [Lachin] corridor,” Alyosha Gabrielyan, former mayor of Askeran, told the Public Radio of Armenia on Tuesday.
Artsakh authorities on Tuesday dismissed an Azerbaijani proposal to provide the Armenian-populated region with food that has been in short supply due to Baku’s eight-month blockade of the Lachin corridor.
The government-linked Azerbaijan Red Crescent announced Tuesday that it is sending two trucks loaded with 40 tons flour to the town of Aghdam adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh and hoped that the Artsakh Armenians will accept the shipment. It also expressed readiness to deliver other basic foodstuffs.
A spokeswoman for President Harutyunyan rejected the offer as a ploy designed to deflect international attention from the blockade and a serious humanitarian crisis caused by it.
Harutyunyan’s spokesperson Lusine Avanesyan said Baku should instead allow renewed traffic through the only road connecting Karabakh to Armenia in line with a Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
“If the Azerbaijani authorities are really interested in ending the worst humanitarian disaster of the people of Artsakh and stopping their genocide, then instead of playing false philanthropy they should stop blocking the restoration of supplies to Artsakh through the Lachin Corridor envisaged by the tripartite declaration of November 9, 2020 and the orders of the International Court of Justice,” Avanesyan told the Artsakhpress news agency.
Harutyunyan likewise ruled out accepting any aid through the Aghdam route when he addressed hundreds of people who rallied in Stepanakert’s central square on Monday night.
“Only one road will be functioning: the Lachin road. We’re not going bring in food from any other places,” Harutiunyan told the angry crowd in a speech repeatedly interrupted by jeers and heckling. This was the only part of his speech that drew applause.