Since 12 December, 2022, a group of Azerbaijanis have blocked the only road connecting Artsakh to Armenia, the Berdzor (Lachin) corridor, with false environmental demands clearly directed by the leadership of Azerbaijan. For 16 days now, around 120,000 Artsakh Armenians have been deprived of such fundamental international rights as the right to free movement and receive medical assistance. Artsakh is facing a serious food and humanitarian crisis, Ermenihaber reports.
While Artsakh and Armenia are warning that Azerbaijan is carrying out a genocidal policy towards the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, and influential actors of international relations are calling on Azerbaijan to open the Lachin humanitarian corridor, Baku receives full support from official Ankara.
The Turkish ambassador to Baku, Cahit Bağcı, took part in the aforementioned actions of Azerbaijan. He met the Azerbaijanis who blocked the road and posted about it on Twitter with the emphasis “Karabakh is Azerbaijan”. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Ömer Çelik, the spokesperson of the ruling party in that country, the Justice and Development Party (AKP-AKP), have already made statements and expressed support for Azerbaijan in its “righteous struggle”.
“Azerbaijan is right both from the point of view of law, from the point of view of justice, and from the point of view of opposing illegal actions in its own lands,” Çavuşoğlu said on 14 December. In fact, the Turkish minister called it fair that due to the suspension of gas supply to Artsakh, 120,000 people were deprived of heating in winter conditions for 3 days, that as a result of the 16-day blockade, around 350 patients could not receive medical care in Yerevan, and that the rights of thousands of people are being violated every second.
On 22 December, Ömer Çelik, in turn, made a statement, stating that Armenians who support extremism are allegedly resorting to provocative actions in Karabakh. This nonsense voiced by Çelik becomes more obvious especially when from the very first days of the false environmental action of the Azerbaijanis, its participants are showing with their hands the famous symbol of the Turkish extreme nationalists, the “gray wolves”, expressing a real threat to the Artsakh Armenians.
Moreover, Çelik denied that the Lachin corridor is closed, literally lying that the Azerbaijani side is only blocking the traffic of trucks loaded with minerals. Apart from the official announcements, this false propaganda of Azerbaijan was widely promoted by the Turkish media.
The state news agency “Anadolu” of Turkey, the pro-government “Haber Global” and “Yeni Akit” actively spread the official Azeri theses that do not correspond to reality. In addition, they have violated the principles of journalism by always unilaterally presenting the events of the Lachin Corridor, their causes and consequences.
Let’s remind that on the morning of 12 December, a group of Azerbaijanis in civilian clothes blocked the only road connecting Artsakh to Armenia, the Stepanakert-Goris highway, in the area of the intersection under Shushi-Goris for environmental reasons. From 13 December, the Azerbaijani side cut off the gas supply to Artsakh, which, however, was restored on 16 December, without preconditions. Hundreds of citizens, including minors, cannot return home. The transport connection of Lisagor, Mets Shen, Hin Shen and Yegtsahogh villages of Shushi region with the capital Stepanakert is interrupted.
On 21 December, the situation around the Lachine Corridor was discussed at the UN Security Council meeting. The representatives of almost all countries unanimously emphasized in their speech that the Lachin Corridor should be unblocked. However, Azerbaijan does not follow any of these calls. On the 13th day of the blockade of Lachin Corridor, on 24 December, the President of Azerbaijan Aliyev stated: “No one can influence us. There may be calls, some announcements, but you don’t need to give them meaning. We answer those calls simply out of political correctness. But this will not change our position at all.”
