By Aram Danielyan

As it is known, a group of Azerbaijanis have been blocking the Stepanakert-Goris road for environmental reasons since 10:30 a.m. on December 12, also making political demands. Azerbaijan's blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh continues.

The problem of the Lachin corridor quickly gained international publicity and was put on the agenda of the UN Security Council meeting.

As you know, on December 20, at the request of Armenia the UN Security Council held a meeting in New York to discuss the closure by Azerbaijan of the Lachin corridor connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with the Republic of Armenia.

During the UN Security Council meeting, a call was made to unblock the Lachin corridor.

Shahan Kandaharian, editor of the Aztag newspaper in Lebanon, is convinced that the session is motivated by geopolitical reasons, which do not necessarily emanate only from considerations of unblocking the corridor or preventing a humanitarian disaster in Artsakh.

The speeches of representatives of superpowers during the aforementioned UN Security Council meeting attest to that. There are nuanced differences in them.

For example, in the statement of the U.S. representative, as Kandaharian noted, there was no reference to the trilateral statement of November 9, 2020, that Azerbaijan must fulfill its obligations, but there was a targeted accusation that Azerbaijan and (an interesting phrase "Azerbaijan and other parties" was used) must open the corridor.

"Considering the current political conditions in the world, I think the arrows, hints and accusations are directed against Moscow," Kandaharian told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

The French representative referred to the trilateral statement that Azerbaijan must fulfill its obligations. France clearly signaled the need to restore the mediation mission in the Brussels format, which was suspended after Aliyev's statements about Macron's unwillingness to participate.

The analyst believes that France, which is very active, comes to the fore, especially after Azerbaijan's September invasion of Armenian territory, when Paris demanded that Baku return its troops to their initial positions.

At that time, the Senate and the National Assembly of France called on the international community to impose sanctions against Azerbaijan in case this demand was not met. It was after this that Aliyev declared Macron's unwillingness to participate in the talks.

"There was a meaningful difference in the statement of the Russian representative, because Russia put an equal sign, addressed the parties and pointed out that it was under its guarantee, mediation, moderator that the parties signed a statement, that they are actively working with the parties and thanks to their efforts the gas supply in Artsakh was restored. Moscow also said that thanks to their efforts Artsakh has been partially unblocked and that the corridor will be fully opened in the near future. Moscow thus wanted to show that it is in sole control of the situation on the ground," Kandaharian noted.

If the UN obliges Azerbaijan to respect the trilateral statement of November 9 as a single document, which also contains a clause on the communication unblocking in the whole region, it will mean the legitimization of Russian mediation by the international community, the newspaper editor-in-chief assessed. At the same time, according to this statement, the control over all communications to be unblocked will be exercised by Russia.

"Armenia has proposed organizing a UN fact-finding mission in Nagorno-Karabakh, but it is difficult to imagine, given the situation in Ukraine. How is it possible today to have Russian peacekeepers and a UN fact-finding mission side by side in Nagorno-Karabakh? There were also statements in Yerevan's position that the Russian peacekeeping mission fails to solve all the security issues. 

The issue should be viewed from the angle of the conflict of mediation missions between the sides, in the prism of creation of counterbalances in the zones of Russia's influence. And the operative convening of UN Security Council was not connected with Azeri "environmentalists" and blocking of Lachin corridor, but with the players' attempt to penetrate into the region and create such balances," Kandaharian added.