“The Lachin road is Azerbaijani territory and Azerbaijan can carry out any action there,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was reported to say after talks with his visiting Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov.
Fidan said that international criticism of the continuing blockage of the only road connecting Karabakh to Armenia is therefore “unfair.”
The United States, the European Union, Russia as well as various international organizations have repeatedly urged Azerbaijan to unblock the vital road. U.S. Secretary of State Antony again did so in a weekend phone call with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Baku continues to dismiss such appeals.
Fidan also said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will agree to normalize Turkish-Armenian relations only after Baku negotiates a desired peace deal with Yerevan.
Meeting with Bayramov on Monday, Erdogan stressed the importance of an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty and the “immediate opening” of a “corridor” that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave via Armenia’s Syunik province, which also borders Iran.
Armenian leaders have ruled out any extraterritorial land links for Nakhichevan. Tehran is also strongly opposed to such a corridor, having repeatedly warned against attempts to strip the Islamic Republic of the common border and transport links with Armenia. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei emphasized this stance when he met with Erdogan last year.
“Iran’s approach to this issue disappoints us and Azerbaijan,” Erdogan said in June this year. “I want us to overcome that problem soon.”