Azerbaijanis Will Try to Inspect Trucks, Then Citizens: Artsakh Foreign Minister

The establishment of a checkpoint by Azerbaijan at the Hakari Bridge is yet another blow to the tripartite agreement of November 9, and Azerbaijan is advancing its policy of ethnic cleansing of Artsakh. This was stated by Sergey Ghazaryan, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh, during a broadcast on Public Radio.

“With the establishment of this checkpoint, the perception of the security environment is changing, and this policy has long been adopted by Azerbaijan, which, by putting forth various unfounded, false accusations, seeks to carry out such provocations,” he noted.

According to Ghazaryan, first and foremost, according to the November 9 agreement, the Azerbaijani side guaranteed that the connection between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia would be ensured safely by Azerbaijan, and that citizens, vehicles, and cargo would pass through safely from both sides.

“Now new demands are being put forward; it seems that at this moment they will try to inspect freight trucks, claiming that they are checking for weapons. In the next phase, they will already claim that they are inspecting citizens, their personal belongings, etc. I must emphasize that this point was a crucial element of the agreement and that the majority of displaced residents of Artsakh returned in 2020 considering the existence of those guarantees, including those from Russia,” he said.

The Foreign Minister mentioned that the people of Artsakh returned after seeing that Russian peacekeeping forces were deployed, but now they find themselves in a hostage situation. “We can see now that Azerbaijan is advancing, pushing back the red lines of the peacekeepers, and we observe that various representatives from the Russian side are saying that their attention is focused elsewhere, which Azerbaijan is exploiting very well. Now we are trying to understand whether there is a deadline, a boundary, or a saturation point that the Russian side has in this regard.”

When asked if this also constitutes a red line for the authorities in Artsakh, the head of the foreign department said that yes, conclusions have long been drawn in all directions, but in this case, they expect concrete actions from the Russian peacekeeping forces.