Arayik Harutiunian, the Karabakh president, discussed the situation around the Lachin corridor with his top security officials as well as leaders of local political forces at an emergency meeting held in Stepanakert.
“Through the [Russian] peacekeeping contingent stationed in Artsakh, the Azerbaijani side has demanded that traffic [between Armenia and Karabakh] be organized along a new route in the near future,” his office said in a statement on the meeting.
The Karabakh leaders discussed “measures that need to be taken in the current situation, including ensuring safe traffic with the help of the Russian peacekeeping forces,” it added without elaborating.
The Azerbaijani side did not immediately comment on the claim. There were also no public statements by Armenian officials.
The Kremlin said Putin and Pashinian discussed “some practical aspects of implementing the trilateral agreements” reached by the leaders of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan during and after the 2020 war in Karabakh. It did not go into details. Pashinian’s office released an identical statement on the call.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan also held a phone call on Tuesday. According to the Armenian Foreign Ministry, they discussed “the security situation in the region.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry reported later in the day that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu phoned his Azerbaijani counterpart Zakir Hasanov. In a short statement, the ministry said they spoke about regional security and “other topics of mutual interest.”
The five-kilometer-wide Lachin corridor became Karabakh’s sole overland link to Armenia following the 2020 war. Armenian forces pulled out of the rest of the wider Lachin district under the terms of the Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the six-week hostilities.
The truce accord calls for the construction by 2024 of a new Armenia-Karabakh highway that will bypass the town of Lachin and two Armenian-populated villages located within the current corridor protected by Russian peacekeeping troops.
Azerbaijani and Turkish construction firms have been rapidly building a 32-kilomer-long highway that will link up to new road sections in Armenia and Karabakh. Armenia’s Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures said last Friday that work on the Armenian section will start in August.
The authorities in Stepanakert reported the Azerbaijani demand to switch to the new corridor the day after accusing Azerbaijani forces of attacking Karabakh Armenian army positions in the disputed territory’s northwest. They said that one Karabakh soldier was wounded as a result.
Baku denied violating the ceasefire regime. However, the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed on Tuesday that there were “three ceasefire violations by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces.”
“The Russian peacekeeper command, in cooperation with representatives of the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides, has resolved the situation,” added the ministry. “No changes in the line of contact were allowed.”
The Karabakh army also did not report fresh fighting on Tuesday. Still, its commander, Kamo Vartanian, said in the afternoon that “tension persists at some sections of the line of contact.”
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Karen Donfried appeared to have discussed the heightened tensions with the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers in separate phone calls on Monday.
“She called for de-escalation and encouraged continued dialogue,” the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs tweeted afterwards.
The European Union’s special envoy to the South Caucasus, Toivo Klaar, likewise urged the conflicting sides to “deescalate and avoid derailing an historic opportunity to turn the page on decades of strife.”