Armenia doubts Azerbaijan's capacity to reach agreement

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has cast doubt on Azerbaijan's capacity to reach an agreement, as Baku keeps violating the trilateral statement reached by the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia to end the war in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) in 2020.

Pashinyan told a Cabinet meeting on Thursday, January 5 that Azerbaijan's closure of the Lachin corridor - the sole route connecting Karabakh to the rest of the world - has been going on for 25 days now.

"At the same time, Azerbaijan is trying to attribute to Armenia its practice of not fulfilling obligations, which is completely fictitious," Pashinyan said.

"It is also important to note that various reasons are given for the closure of Lachin Corridor, but, in my opinion, the most profound and real reason is that the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh continue to live in their homeland and the international community has come to see more clearly Azerbaijan's overt policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh."

The Prime Minister added that he expects more substantive steps from the international community, including Russia, which is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and whose peacekeeping troops are stationed in Nagorno-Karabakh. According to him, keeping the Lachin area under its control is a direct obligation of Russia's that Moscow assumed by singing the trilateral statement.