The Chairman said that the Nagorno-Karabakh authorities will conduct the negotiations with Azerbaijan
“Armenia will not participate in the negotiations with Azerbaijan regarding the opening of the Lachin corridor. Nagorno-Karabakh authorities have the opportunity to negotiate directly with Azerbaijan.”
Chairman of the National Assembly of Armenia, Alen Simonyan, made this statement in an interview with the Armenian Bureau of “Azadlig” radio .
Simonyan stressed that Yerevan will support any decision of Nagorno-Karabakh authorities. According to the speaker of the Armenian parliament, they have been in direct contact with the Azerbaijani side without Armenia interference:
“There were contacts during the first two weeks of the blockade, and at this stage these contacts have stopped.”
To the question “is it correct that Armenia does not participate in the negotiations regarding the Lachin Corridor?” Simonyan answered: “has Armenia closed the Lachin corridor?”.
The Chairman explained the reason why Armenia did not intervene in the negotiations regarding the Lachin Corridor:
“If Armenia goes for it, then it will have to declare the tripartite statement invalid. One of the goals of Azerbaijan is to draw Armenia to these negotiations, so that the opening of a corridor through the territory of Armenia will be on the agenda. For this reason, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia did not join the meeting held in Moscow in December.”
What is happening in the Lachin corridor?
From the morning of December 12, a group of non-governmental organization representatives, media representatives and social activists connected to the Azerbaijani authorities closed the only access from Armenia territory to Nagorno-Karabakh, known as the Lachin Corridor, which is under the temporary control of Russian peacekeepers.
Although the participants of the action wanted to move towards inside Karabakh, saying that they were protesting the illegal exploitation of mineral deposits of Azerbaijan, the peacekeeping contingent did not allow them.
The participants said that the ranks of the action were expanding. Various voluntary groups and civil society representatives joined the action.
It is also claimed that representatives of the civil society who could not join the action were instructed to carry out propaganda on social networks and media.
On the 4th day of the action, the protesters put forward a new demand.
Those requirements are the establishment of separate checkpoints of all state institutions in the area, including the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the State Border Service, and the State Customs Committee.
