EU Envoy Goes To Armenia To Discuss Lachin Corridor Blockade

EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus Toivo Klaar on Monday announced his visit to Yerevan to discuss the situation around the Lachin corridor linking Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh and try to find a way out of the impasse as the key road remains blockaded by a group describing itself as Azerbaijani climate activists

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd January, 2023) EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus Toivo Klaar on Monday announced his visit to Yerevan to discuss the situation around the Lachin corridor linking Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh and try to find a way out of the impasse as the key road remains blockaded by a group describing itself as Azerbaijani climate activists.

"Back in Yerevan for a day of meetings. The situation around the Lachin corridor is serious and solutions have to urgently be found. I look forward to discussions to explore ways forward. The EU's goal remains a comprehensive Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement," Klaar said on Twitter.

Since December 12, the Lachin corridor, which runs through the Lachin district of Azerbaijan to link Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, has been blocked by a group of people from Azerbaijan described by Baku as environmental activists protesting alleged Armenian illegal mining in the area.

Russian peacekeepers have been trying to broker an end to the blockade with Azerbaijan, which is claiming Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh in its entirety. Yerevan has called the move a provocation by Baku meant to cause a humanitarian collapse in the region. The Kremlin said it was concerned by the situation in the region and would continue talking to both countries to restore freedom of movement.

On January 18, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the issue of the Lachin corridor in Nagorno-Karabakh could be resolved in the near future. The top diplomat noted that Moscow proposed to Baku and Yerevan a mechanism according to which Russian peacekeepers would have the authority under the trilateral agreement to control movement through the Lachin corridor and, among other things, to check vehicles for prohibited non-humanitarian, non-civilian goods in them.