(MENAFN- AzerNews) The open-ended protest of the Azerbaijani eco-activists on the
Khankandi-Lachin road against the illegal exploitation of mineral
deposits in the Karabakh economic region of Azerbaijan has entered
the 36th day today.
In defiance of the picket on the sole road linking the ethnic
Armenians in Karabakh with Armenia bypassing Shusha and Lachin
District under full control of the Azerbaijani army, the protesters
are not obstructing the passage of civil vehicles as well as the
transport means of the Russian peacekeeping contingent.
The command of the peacekeepers in the region, and Russian
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mariya Zakharova have repeatedly
confirmed that the road is operational and has always been open for
civil purposes.
However, malicious gossips have it that the road is allegedly
blocked and Armenians in Karabakh are in dire conditions, though
facts are stubborn, and the major actor in the region, that is, the
command of the Russian peacekeeping contingent has disproved it
more than once.
One would stick to the saying 'the dogs bark, but the caravan
goes on' but when foreign officials at the service of the Armenian
diaspora come up with unverified, one-sided, and clearly malicious
intentions, one cannot but respond and firmly and decisively.
“Transportation through the Lachin Corridor has been blocked for
over a month. Each day commercial traffic and humanitarian
assistance cannot flow freely to Nagorno-Karabakh, and the
potential for a humanitarian crisis increases. Free movement
through the corridor must be restored ,” Samantha Power, Administrator of the U.S.
Agency for International Development (USAID), alleged in her
tweet.
Under the November 10, 2020, trilateral agreement, signed by
Azerbaijani, Russian, and Armenian leaders, the Lachin corridor is
under the control of Russian peacekeepers. Unfortunately, the
Russian peacekeepers failed to live up to their commitments and
dozens of cases, documented by Azerbaijan, revealed that the
Russians in the area were not up to the mission and let Iranian
military trainers, Armenian terrorists, and separatists move freely
to and fro and plant landmines in sovereign areas to kill innocent
Azerbaijanis.
In addition, prior to the protest of the Azerbaijani
eco-activists, the separatist in concert with the Russian
peacekeepers plundered natural resources, which actually played a
major trigger for the protest. Against this backdrop and knee-jerk
reactions of the Russian peacekeepers to the justified demands of
Azerbaijan, eco-activists, NGO representatives and people from all
walks of society took to the street on December 12, 2022, to say no
to the ransacking that resulted in the indefinite protest on the
Shusha road, which today marks the 36th day.
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