Azerbaijan Aims to Control Three Strategic Factors in the Region: Heights, Water Resources, and Minerals – Nairi Hohikyan

Since at least 2014, I have argued in my publications, and I continue to assert today, that our enemy seeks to seize three strategic factors in the region: heights, water resources, and minerals.

As a result of the 2020 war, Azerbaijan captured or received as a gift almost all the important heights, rivers, and several mines in Artsakh.

For years, when I spoke about the necessity of legislatively including the Karvachar water basin within the territory of the Republic of Armenia, citing its legal foundations, the government dismissed it as an unserious approach. I was told there was no need to search for a black cat in a dark room, especially when it wasn't there.

Five years ago, Azerbaijan changed the course of the Zvaraget tributary of the Meghri River towards Nakhichevan, resulting in problems with access to drinking and irrigation water in the towns of Meghri and Agarak, as well as surrounding settlements.

Today, Azerbaijan continues the same process in the Karvachar region. When it holds the headwaters of the Arpa, Vorotan, Khachen, and Tartar rivers, there is nothing stopping the enemy from, for instance, changing the direction of Arpa River tributaries to another side, thereby depriving the Jermuk Kechut reservoir and subsequently Lake Sevan of this crucial water resource.

In that case, let the authorities of Armenia find a proud citizen in a dark room.

Hint: From the perspective of international law, the Karvachar water basin belongs not to Artsakh, but to the Republic of Armenia. Do not hesitate, open the archives and other documents, read.