A senior Russian Foreign Ministry official dismissed Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s suggestions that the peacekeepers receive a United Nations mandate or be replaced by a multinational mission approved by the UN Security Council.
“The Russian peacekeeping contingent remains the only guarantor of maintaining stability in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone,” the official, Pyotr Ilyichev, told the Russia Today state-run news agency. “There is no need to give it a UN mandate since the modalities of our peacekeepers’ activities are already clearly fixed in the first tripartite statement of the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia dated November 9, 2020.”
The 2020 agreement, which stopped a six-week Armenian-Azerbaijani war, placed the sole road connecting Karabakh to Armenia under the Russian peacekeepers’ control and committed Azerbaijan to ensuring safe passage through it. The Armenian government argues that the Azerbaijani blockade is a gross violation of this arrangement.
Pashinian has repeatedly accused the peacekeepers of doing little to unblock the corridor and even turning a blind eye to what the Armenian side views as Azerbaijani efforts to “depopulate” Karabakh.
“If the Russian Federation is unable to ensure stability and security in Nagorno-Karabakh for objective or subjective reasons, I think that it should initiate a discussion in the UN Security Council and raise the issue of granting the Russian peacekeeping force in Nagorno-Karabakh a mandate from the UN Security Council or sending an additional, multinational peacekeeping force to Nagorno-Karabakh,” Pashinian said in late December.
The Russian Foreign Ministry rejected the criticism, saying that the peacekeepers are “doing everything to settle the situation on the ground.”
Ilyichev likewise insisted that they are “effectively coping with all the tasks of restoring peace and security in Nagorno-Karabakh.” He also said that the idea of the UN deploying a multinational peacekeeping force to Karabakh is “hardly realistic.”
“Besides, as practice shows, peacekeeping missions deployed under a UN Security Council mandate do not always enjoy the trust of host states,” added the Russian official.
Pashinian again urged Moscow to help unblock the Lachin corridor when he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone last week.
The blockade has led to serious shortages of food and other essential items in Karabakh. The humanitarian crisis has been compounded by disruptions in Armenia’s supplies of electricity and natural gas to Karabakh carried out through Azerbaijani-controlled territory.
