“We express our serious concern about the situation in the zone of responsibility of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh, on the Armenian-Azerbaijani line of contact, as well as in the dialogue between official Baku and Yerevan,” the Russian ministry said.
“We record with utter concern an increase in the number of ceasefire violations and various incidents, which regularly result in casualties on both sides. We consider the increased degree of accusatory and aggressive rhetoric in the public space of Azerbaijan and Armenia to be no less dangerous. In the context of the latest developments on April 23, we especially note the unacceptability of any unilateral steps in violation of the basic provisions of the tripartite statement of the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia of November 9, 2020, whether it is an uncoordinated change in the mode of operation of the Lachin corridor or attempts to use it for purposes not in line with the peace agenda,” it added.
Azerbaijan announced on Sunday that it set up a checkpoint at the entrance to the Lachin corridor from Armenia, effectively tightening its blockade of the mostly Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Authorities in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh denounced the move, saying that it was in violation of the Moscow-brokered 2020 ceasefire agreement that designated the Lachin corridor along with the ethnic Armenian-controlled part of the Nagorno-Karabakh region as a sphere of deployment of Russian peacekeepers.
In its statement today the Russian Foreign Ministry called on the parties to “immediately return to the existing agreements.”
“We proceed from the premise that in any case the local population should not suffer and no obstacles should be created for their livelihoods. We believe that many of the problems that have arisen are the result of many months of idleness and the lack of progress in the negotiation process on the main tracks of the trilateral agreements between the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, including the unblocking of transport communications in the region, the launch of the process of delimitation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and the harmonization of the parameters of a peace treaty between Azerbaijan and Armenia. We hope that Baku and Yerevan will show political will and be able to overcome this negative trend in the near future,” it said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Moscow is ready to provide all the necessary assistance to Azerbaijan and Armenia “both at the political level and on the ground.”
“We also warn external Western players and local Russophobic elements working on their opportunistic agenda against attempts to stir up the situation, including through a denigrating campaign against Russia,” it concluded.
Commenting on the situation in the Lachin corridor, Dmitri Peskov, a spokesman for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, said that additional efforts needed to be made for the normalization of the situation between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
“We continue our contacts. We are working with both Yerevan and Baku. And we will continue this work... The situation is indeed difficult, it requires additional efforts, and, most importantly, it requires that the countries understand that there is no alternative to the implementation of the [trilateral] agreements,” Peskov said, as quoted by Russian media.
The Kremlin spokesman stressed that Russia continues its mediation efforts, and “mainly on the implementation of all the provisions of the trilateral documents that were signed earlier.”
The 2020 ceasefire agreement brokered by Russia put an end to a six-week Armenian-Azerbaijani war over Nagorno-Karabakh in which nearly 7,000 soldiers were killed on both sides.
The war in which Azerbaijan regained all of the Armenian-controlled areas outside of Nagorno-Karabakh as well as chunks of territory inside the Soviet-era autonomous oblast proper was followed by international efforts to broker a peace deal between Yerevan and Baku.
In separate statements issued on April 23, the United States and France, the two other nations that along with Russia have spearheaded decades-long efforts to broker a solution to the protracted conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, have voiced their concerns about the developments in the Lachin corridor, saying that an Azerbaijani checkpoint there undermines efforts to establish confidence in the peace process and damages the negotiation process.