While on the second leg of her tour in Yerevan Colonna was received by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
According to an Armenian government report, during their meeting the two, in particular, stressed the need for “the immediate implementation of the decision of the International Court of Justice and the need for Azerbaijan to unblock the Lachin Corridor.”
The Hague-based court ruled in February, two months after government-backed Azerbaijani protesters blocked the road, that Azerbaijan must “take all measures at its disposal to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions.”
Azerbaijan tightened the effective blockade of the Armenian-populated region on April 23 when its border service set up a checkpoint at the entrance to the corridor from Armenia.
The move came after Baku accused Armenia of shipping military cargoes into Nagorno-Karabakh, a claim denied in both Yerevan and Stepanakert.
The French minister and the Armenian premier also said during their meeting that “unilateral actions by Azerbaijan” were unacceptable, considering that Azerbaijani’s establishment of a checkpoint in the Lachin Corridor contradicted the Russia-brokered ceasefire agreement that put an end to a six-week Armenian-Azerbaijani war in 2020.
Under that deal Moscow deployed around 2,000 peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh and along a five-kilometer-wide strip of land connecting the region with Armenia and known as the Lachin Corridor. Yerevan and Stepanakert insist that there should be only Russian presence in the corridor under the terms of the ceasefire.
A press release by the Armenian premier’s office said that Pashinian and Colonna “also exchanged thoughts on issues related to the normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan” and quoted the French minister as saying that Paris supports Yerevan “in the search for a just and sustainable peace.”
Pashinian and Colonna also highlighted the importance of “the effective activities of the EU observation mission in Armenia in the context of ensuring security and stability in the region.”
While visiting the Azerbaijani capital first Colonna also reportedly stressed at a joint press conference with her Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov that Azerbaijan must comply with the order by the International Court of Justice regarding the Lachin Corridor.
She said that Azerbaijan should also take into account the positions of the United States and France regarding the matter.
In separate statements on April 23, when Azerbaijan began building its checkpoint on the Lachin Corridor, Washington and Paris voiced their concerns that the development could fuel further tensions and undermine peace efforts between Yerevan and Baku.
Bayramov, for his part, claimed that Azerbaijan installed the checkpoint on the Lachin road after “Yerevan ignored Baku’s calls to stop illegal use of the road.”
“The Lachin road is open and will remain open,” he claimed, echoing his ministry’s earlier pledge that all “necessary conditions” will be created for “a transparent and orderly passage of Armenian residents living in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan” in both directions.
While in Baku the French foreign minister was also received by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.