Armenia says food shortages hit Nagorno-Karabakh, blames Azerbaijan, Russia

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan gestures while speaking during a plenary session at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia, Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022. (Sergei Bobylev/TASS News Agency Host Pool Photo via AP)

TBILISI -

The breakaway territory of Nagorno-Karabakh is running short of food due to a blockade now well into its second week, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was quoted as saying on Thursday, blaming Azerbaijan.

Pashinyan also criticized Russian peacekeeping troops for failing to keep open the Lachin corridor, the road route across Azerbaijan that links Armenia with the Nagorno-Karbabakh enclave where some 120,000 ethnic Armenians live.

The enclave is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but its inhabitants are predominantly Armenian and it broke away after a war in the early 1990s. In 2020, Azerbaijan retook territory in and around Nagorno-Karabakh after a short war that ended in a Russian-brokered ceasefire.

Pashinyan told his cabinet the humanitarian situation in the enclave was "extremely tense as a result of the illegal blockade by Azerbaijan of the Lachin corridor."

He said he had proposed terms to Azerbaijan for lifting the blockade of the route, where Russian peacekeepers have been confronted by a crowd of Azerbaijanis describing themselves as environmental activists.

Azerbaijan says they are involved in a genuine protest against illegal Armenian mining in Nagorno-Karabakh and it was the Russian peacekeepers who closed the road.

Pashinyan said the peacekeepers were not fulfilling their function, which he said was "precisely to prevent such illegal actions and, in particular, to keep the Lachin corridor under control."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian peacekeepers, deployed after the last war in 2020, were working to ensure peace and order, in accordance with their mandate.

Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh depend on the Lachin corridor for supplies of food, medicine, fuel and other essential goods.

"Hundreds of families remain divided on different sides of the blockade. In Nagorno-Karabakh, there are shortages of a number of essential goods, including food," Pashinyan said.

He called for a fact-finding mission to be sent to Nagorno-Karabakh from the United Nations or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

U.S.-based Human Rights Watch this week called on the Azerbaijani authorities and Russian peacekeepers to ensure that vehicles with humanitarian goods can pass. "The longer the disruption to essential goods and services, the greater the risk to civilians," it said.

The standoff is fueling tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which have yet to reach a peace deal. Violations of the 2020 truce remain commonplace, with more than 200 soldiers killed on both sides in a flare-up of fighting in September.

(Reporting by Reuters. Editing by Mark Heinrich)