Azerbaijan has been blocking the only connecting road from Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh for months. A man is said to have starved to death as a result.
No medicine, no baby food, no flour, no fuel, at times no electricity: videos and eyewitness reports show how catastrophic the humanitarian situation is in the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh region. Azerbaijan has been blocking the Lachin Corridor for regular passenger and goods traffic since December.
Since June 15, not even aid convoys of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Russian peacekeeping forces have been allowed to bring urgently needed goods to the approximately 120,000 ethnic Armenians. At least one person has already died as a result of malnutrition, according to Armenian media.
Luis Moreno Ocampo, chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague from 2003 to 2012, explained in a report published in early August why the blockade and its consequences meet the criteria of genocide under Article II c) of the UN Genocide Convention. It is the first time that a high-ranking international expert has explicitly described Azerbaijan’s activities as genocide.
“There are reasonable grounds for believing that [Aserbaidschans] “President Aliyev harbors genocidal intentions: he knowingly, willingly and voluntarily blocked the Lachin corridor even after being informed of the consequences of his actions by the interim order of the International Court of Justice,” the 28-page report reads. The International Court of Justice has issued two legally binding orders to Azerbaijan to lift the blockade.
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This analysis lies IPPEN.MEDIA as part of a cooperation with Security. Table Professional Briefing before – she had published first Security.Table on August 22, 2023.
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Hebe dispute on genocide: “Battle terms don’t belong here”
When asked by Table.Media, Ocampo stated, “I want to do my part to stop genocide denial. Responsibility now lies with the 153 contracting states of the genocide convention, including Germany. You have a duty to prevent genocide.”
The Federal Government and the Federal Foreign Office (AA) are “concerned” about the unstable situation. “The Federal Government supports and participates in the trilateral peace talks initiated by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, and also welcomes corresponding initiatives by the USA,” said a spokeswoman for the AA when asked. Concrete steps include supporting the local Red Cross and the EU Mission in Armenia (EUMA).
However, to describe the blockade as genocide goes too far for government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit: In yesterday’s federal press conference he said to journalists: “These are battle terms that, in my opinion, do not belong here.”
Violation of ceasefire agreements
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at odds over the region for decades. A war broke out in 2020, ending on November 9 with a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement. The main point of contention is the status of the people in Nagorno-Karabakh. After continued threatening rhetoric from Azerbaijan, Armenia’s President Nikol Pashinyan signaled in April his willingness to cede Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan on condition that the people receive minority rights.
The agreement also stipulated that the Latschin corridor should be kept open. Aliyev justifies the need to set up checkpoints on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border with Armenia’s illegal arms smuggling into Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia denies these allegations.
Azerbaijan also points to a newly built road via Aghdam towards Baku, which is open. However, residents of Nagorno-Karabakh fear that if they leave their homes for Baku, they will not be allowed to return to their homes unless they accept Azerbaijani citizenship. According to Armenia’s interpretation, Aliyev wants to gradually destroy the ethnic Armenians.
UN Security Council meets without resolution
Pressure on Aliyev is now even coming from close allies such as Israel and Turkey, both arms suppliers to Azerbaijan. The US, which is playing an active mediating role, is delaying the renewal of a long-standing military aid program for Baku amid allegations of genocide.
At an emergency UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday, the US, France, Russia, the EU and others called on Azerbaijan to lift the blockade on the Lachin corridor. However, the session ended without a resolution.
Narek Sukiasyan, political scientist at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Armenia, is disappointed. “Once the possibility of the UN Security Council has been exhausted, what remains?” The national interests of the West – many countries in the EU, including Germany, obtain cheap gas and hydrogen from Azerbaijan – continue to rank above the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Peace negotiations falter
“Azerbaijan keeps creating new crises with the escalations and brings the peace negotiations of the past months to a standstill,” says Sukiasyan. Even if Aliyev were to lift the blockade of the Lachin corridor shortly, the fundamental problems, namely peace between the two countries and the rights of the people in Nagorno-Karabakh, would not be resolved.
It has almost become a side note that last Tuesday a patrol of the unarmed EU observer mission in Armenia reported that four to five shots had been fired about a kilometer from the patrol. “Although it was not possible to determine the target of the shots, the patrol took the necessary protective measures and left the area,” an EUMA spokeswoman said when asked by Table.Media.
The EUMA first denied the incident via X (formerly Twitter), but then had to admit, due to a leaked video, that the EUMA officers “were present at the shooting incident.” No one was injured.
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