The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday called for the immediate reopening of the Lachin Corridor and said urgent action was needed to deliver humanitarian aid to Artsakh. Later in the day, representatives of the UN’s Armenia office visited the Kornidzor village in Armenia’s Syunik Province, where a convoy of trucks carrying 400 tons of humanitarian aid from Armenia to Artsakh have been stranded there for more than week with Azerbaijan refusing the humanitarian aid to pass through.
“The Secretary-General is deeply concerned by the reports of continued challenges related to the freedom of movement along the Lachin Corridor,” Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for Secretary-General Guterres said in a statement.
“He recalls his previous statement on the need for the Parties to implement the Orders of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), including the Orders issued on 22 February 2023 and reaffirmed on 6 July 2023, related to measures to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions,” the statement added.
“He is particularly concerned about reports of the deteriorating humanitarian situation on the ground and calls for urgent steps to facilitate access for the delivery of humanitarian assistance to people in need. He urges both parties to intensify efforts towards the long-term normalization of relations for the benefit of peace and security in the region,” Gutirres’s spokesperson, Haq, said in his statement.
On the ninth day that the humanitarian aid convoy has been stranded in Kornidzor, the representatives of the UN office visited the area and were briefed about the situation on the ground.
The acting resident coordinator of the UN office in Armenia, Nanna Skau, addressed reporters and read Guterres’ statement. However, she said “at this point I cannot go beyond the statement.”
“We do expect the statement issued will hopefully lead to some positive results,” Skau added.
The UN representatives visit follows a tour by last week by 20 accredited diplomats to Kornidzor, among them representatives of the United States Embassy in Armenia.
Davit Knyazyan, the head of the Armenia Foreign Minister policy development office said the Deputy Foreign Minister Vahe Gevorgyan on Thursday would provide a detailed report about the humanitarian situation in Artsakh at the UN Security Council, which is holding an open debate session on famine and conflict-induced global food security
“Of course, the topic is completely relevant to our situation, and the Armenian side will make a speech presenting the situation,” said Knyazyan.
“We will use all available tools in all international instances to secure the reopening of Lachin Corridor. There are many such tools, we consistently use them and implement them as needed, the purpose of which is to strengthen the international pressure on Azerbaijan, which is already happening,” he added.
Knyazyan, who was accompanying the UN Armenia representatives to Kornidzor, told Armenpress that such visits provide a first-hand account of the actual situation on the Lachin Corridor and help to debunk the “fake narrative” being advanced by Azerbaijan.
“This is highly important in order to show that Azerbaijan’s claims that the corridor is open are untrue, and that Azerbaijan is not implementing the binding obligations stipulated under international humanitarian law and the well-known rulings of the International Court of Justice,” Knyazyan said.
He said that the foreign ministry has hight expectations that international pressure on Azerbaijan will allow to reopen the Lachin Corridor and deliver the humanitarian aid.
“There are positive developments,” Knyazyan said. “There have been numerous statements from the EU, the Council of Europe, most recently the UN and partner countries. The issue is widely covered by the international press. We continue to work to strengthen the international community’s pressure on Azerbaijan, to achieve our goal, which is exclusively humanitarian,” he added.
The foreign ministry official said that during the visit the UN representatives were able to ascertain that Azerbaijan’s claims that Armenia is preparing for provocations through the humanitarian assistance are completely false.
“There is no such threat,” Knyazyan said. “The humanitarian convoy trucks are parked at a safe distance, and the Armenian side has properly notified the Russian peacekeeping forces on its request, and through them also the Azerbaijani side in advance, prior to the convoy arriving here.”
“The fact that the cargo has been here for over a week and there hasn’t been a chance to transport the cargo shows Azerbaijan’s destructive approach and its genocidal policy of subjecting the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to ethnic cleansing,” Knyazyan added.
