Again about the “blockade” and “humanitarian crisis” delirium in Karabakh Attention, please!

Despite almost daily reports about the free movement of humanitarian transport, as well as civilian goods through the Lachin road, international actors continue their efforts to discredit Azerbaijan as the instigator of a so-called “blockade” on the highway. The reason for such hysteria is the ongoing protest of the Azerbaijani eco-activists, civil society members, and volunteers on the Lachin road against illegal mining in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.

The mainstream idea against Azerbaijan could be summarized as a manifestation of endeavours for seeking pressure on Azerbaijan to remove the mythical “blockade” which the masterminds believe has led to a “humanitarian crisis in Karabakh”. The Heinrich Boell Foundation South Caucasus joined the delirium on January 18 by organizing a webinar dedicated to the imaginary “crisis”.

Webinar’s moderator Sonja Schiffers from the Heinrich Boell Foundation’s Tbilisi Office hosted five speakers, including Matthias Vollert from the Federal Foreign Office, Lilit Shahverdyan, a journalist from Karabakh, Bahruz Samadov, an Azerbaijani political analyst and activist based in the Czech Republic, Areg Kochinyan, Head of the Research Center on Security Policy in Yerevan, and Viola von Cramon, Member of the European Parliament. The remarks by speakers, if not completely, but largely surfaced as of the same anti-Azerbaijan tune carried by several international organisations and media outlets.

Shahverdyan was quite passionate to overshadow Azerbaijan’s humanitarian efforts on the Lachin road with her arguments, which could be easily ridiculed and dismissed. She is convinced that the peaceful Azerbaijani protesters have blocked the road, and deprived the Armenian residents of Karabakh of food and medicine, which led to empty grocery shelves and the launch of a “coupon system” for distributing the “limited amount” of civilian goods. According to her, the same “blockade” also caused the closure of schools, businesses and workplaces. Shahverdyan even blamed Azerbaijan for cutting gas, electricity, and internet supplies to Karabakh.

Azerbaijan was smeared also by the Czech Republic-based Azerbaijani analyst Bahruz Samadov during the webinar. His remarks centred on the general emotional state in Azerbaijan, which he believes ignores co-existence with Armenians. He said the Azerbaijani authorities did not want to accept changes in Karabakh and Ruben Vardanyan’s arrival there was the most triggering issue for Baku. For Samadov, the protest on the Lachin road and its so-called outcomes for the Armenian population in Karabakh pursue the political goals of Azerbaijan, in other words, the main idea is that “if we cannot control Karabakh, we will make life unbearable there”.

Before fetching facts to disprove the abovementioned allegations, we move to the remarks by the Yerevan-based political researcher Areg Kochinyan, which trumpeted Shahverdyan’s words in his own consideration. Kochinyan also accused Azerbaijan of the same delusional “blockade” on the Lachin road and tried to explain the reasons why Baku might be interested in such a scenario. He alleged that the authorities in Azerbaijan seek to get a consensus for installing checkpoints on the Lachin road which would be helpful in “arresting Armenian participants” of the Second Karabakh War and judging them in Baku. The second reason, according to him, is the facilitation of the Zangazur Corridor’s opening, for which Azerbaijan hunts for an “extraterritorial connection” with the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic based on its own interests. Kochinyan is convinced that Azerbaijan is using its military superiority to get those concessions, which is a dangerous scenario and there should be international pressure on Azerbaijan.

Lachin road

In the meantime, international pressure sought by Kochinyan made the lion’s share of remarks by the next speaker of the webinar, the European Parliament Member Viola von Cramon. She enthusiastically lamented the non-reaction of the European institutions to the “catastrophe” in the region and subsequently “disappointing” the Armenians in Karabakh. Cramon claimed that there is aggression by Azerbaijan, it uses force to derail the peace process, and its lobby is actively working to portray the country as a peace-lover and at the same time discredit Armenia as the peace-killer.

Attention, please!

Now it is time to look through the real events surrounding the Lachin corridor. We are not going to present emotion-driven arguments or hallucinations. Our deal is with only facts and truth.

First, Lachin road is completely open to humanitarian and civilian traffic. The road enables only connection between Armenia and the Armenian residents of Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region. And this road was regularly used for the illegal transfer of weapons, landmines, and mineral resources by Armenians under the aegis of the temporary Russian peacekeeping mission. Namely, this abuse and the rejection of on-ground monitoring by Azerbaijani specialists triggered the ongoing protest action of the Azerbaijani activists and civil society members on the Lachin road. Their demand is simple: stop the use of the highway for illegal activities and allow experts from Azerbaijan to examine the locations used for illicit mining.

So, the Center of Analysis of International Relations, known also as the Air Center in Baku, compiled the overall number of vehicles comes-and-goes on the Lachin road, both from Karabakh to Armenia and back despite the continuing protest rally. The chart released by the Centre is based on the evident on-ground reports from the road by various independent journalists and analysts. So, according to the Air Center, a total of more than 630 traffic movements were recorded on the Lachin road from December 15-January 19. The vehicles mainly belonged to the temporary Russian peacekeeping mission deployed along the road and the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC). Furthermore, luxury cars carrying peacekeeping bigwigs also steer on the highway.

Alongside humans, the vehicles supplied on daily basis food, medicines, and other civilian goods to Karabakh. Today, on January 19, a total of 36 Russian peacekeeper vehicles passed freely through the Lachin road. Earlier on January 18, relief vehicles of ICRC supplied the next batch of medicines and other relevant products to Karabakh. Since January 1, the road was used for nearly 490 traffic movements. The ICRC convoys also transferred dozens of patients from Karabakh to the hospitals in Armenia.

As seen in the photo, there is no obstacle by the Azerbaijani protesters to the movement of the ICRC relief vehicles on the Lachin road - the road is fully open for humanitarian traffic

In other words, the allegations about the food or medical supplies shortage in Karabakh have nothing to do with reality. For instance, in video footage released this week, a vendor in a bazaar in Khankendi publicly said that they have everything to eat, drink, and live, and those reporting about the food deficit should film not empty shelves but the full ones. Moreover, there are almost daily social media publications by the Armenian resident in Karabakh from family tables and restaurant gatherings around lavish menus. You can see a few of these visuals below:

An #Armenian resident of #Karabakh responds to "blockade", "hunger" delusions of @TatevikHayrape1. She says they live, eat & drink in abundance & "full shelves should be filmed but not empty ones" #CaliberAz pic.twitter.com/hlbN3JHKL0

— Caliber.Az English (@CaliberEnglish) January 18, 2023

The menu of "Sanremo" restaurant in Khankendi. The last photo was posted on January 14

You can also see more fact-checking details about the fake “food shortage” in our article published earlier.

Meanwhile, on January 17, 26 civilians, including 20 teenagers went safely and freely from Armenia to their home in Karabakh on board Russian peacekeeping vehicles. They have even been offered drinks to alleviate the exhaustion of the road trip. In early January, an Armenian resident of Karabakh, named Toros Gazaryan, approached the Azerbaijani forces on the Lachin road to ask for cigarettes and assistance for returning to Khankendi. He was safely accompanied to a Russian peacekeeping automobile, provided with all he asked for, and seen off back to Karabakh. Gazaryan thanked Azerbaijan and its people for their humanity before leaving. And after his return, Armenians took social media by storm to condemn his actions and call for his “assassination”.

Azerbaijanis offer drinks to Armenian teenagers on Russian peacekeeping vehicles on the Lachin road

Regarding the reports about the suspension of supplies of electricity, natural gas, and internet by the Azerbaijani side to Karabakh, there is no factual information to back up these claims. Because Baku considers the people of Armenian origin of Karabakh the residents of Azerbaijan like other nationalities living within its borders. It is not in Azerbaijani authorities’ interest to deteriorate the conditions of living for its citizens. Such allegations regularly come from the separatists located there for the sake of dramatizing the situation, seeking an international reaction, and discrediting Azerbaijan. However, photos and videos from Khankendi and surrounding territories confirm such allegations are part of a mock-up “humanitarian crisis” orchestrated by Moscow-installed separatist Ruben Vardanyan and his instructors. Meanwhile, Vardanyan himself lodges every day a complaint about the mythical “blockade” and “humanitarian crisis” on social media. A simple question pops up here: if there is no electricity and internet, how he manages to keep his followers updated about his slander campaign? A PC, laptop, cellphone or tablet needs electricity to work or charge up. And the same gadgets should have an internet connection to come online. If both are absent, how Vardanyan is seen daily on social media? Maybe he speaks from Moscow?

"No electricity and no internet", but Ruben Vardanyan is constantly online on social media. How?

International fanatics …

Armenian residents and separatists in Karabakh are not alone at the frontier of smearing campaign against Azerbaijan. In particular, political organisations, media outlets, and individuals from Europe fanatically attack Azerbaijan with various resolutions and statements demanding the “restoration of free movement on the Lachin road”.

The European Parliament released on January 18 a resolution to trumpet the same demands and recall that only diplomatic efforts should solve the situation. On the same day, Germany-based magazine Spiegel International wrote that “Azerbaijan is continuing to cut off Karabakh” and weighed in on a possible EU role in settling the situation. On January 19, a Member of the European Parliament, Miriam Lexmann from Slovakia, put the responsibility on the European Union for the situation “resulting from Azerbaijan’s blockade of Lachin road”, while at the same time urged “serious diplomatic efforts” to untie the knots.

Such zealous calls from Europe come amidst the European Union’s (EU) attempts to gain a stronger foothold in the South Caucasus through mediation in the normalisation between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The EU has shifted the gear in its interest in the South Caucasus against the backdrop of Russia’s weaning influence due to the ongoing bloody war in Ukraine. Europe’s major political and economic powerhouse tries to establish its presence on both sides of the Armenia-Azerbaijan border and counts on achieving high leverage over Armenia by snatching it out of Russia’s orbit since the same cannot be a walk in the park in Azerbaijan.

So, the anti-Azerbaijan chorus of "blockade" and "humanitarian crisis" in Europe is not sympathy for the "desperate Armenians" in Karabakh at all but catching the moment to pursue personal interests. In other words, European fanatics are trying to kill two birds with one stone ...