Armenia to allocate extra $10 million in aid to Karabakh

Armenia has approved an additional $10 million in aid to Azerbaijan's Karabakh region where Russian peacekeepers are deployed.

According to Armenpress, the decision of the Armenian government was announced by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at a Cabinet meeting on 29 December.

"The provision of 4 billion drams [$10 million] in additional support to Nagorno-Karabakh is among the points on the agenda of the Cabinet meeting today. The provision of the necessary humanitarian and socio-psychological assistance to the people of Nagorno-Karabakh is an absolute necessity," Pashinyan said.

He said a special task force would be set up within the Armenian government to provide urgent assistance to ethnic Armenians living in Karabakh. The working group will be chaired by the newly appointed deputy prime minister, Tigran Khachatryan, who together with the separatist Karabakh authorities will monitor humanitarian challenges and organise the provision of assistance in urgent matters, including with the involvement of international organisations.

Pashinyan made the remarks amid a round-the-clock protest that Azerbaijani environmentalists have been holding in the Lachin corridor, a road linking Armenia with the Karabakh region, since 12 December with the demand that Azerbaijani experts be allowed to monitor ore deposits in Karabakh which they and Baku say are being mined illegally. 

Back in October, the then Armenian Finance Minister Tigran Khachatryan said 144bn drams (around $360 million) would be allocated to Nagorno-Karabakh from the Armenian state budget for 2023.

Yerevan provided more than 128 billion drams ($267 million) in aid to the Karabakh region in 2021 and planned to allocate more than 144 billion drams ($300 million) in 2022.