Both before, in the days of the 44-day war in 2020, and after that, to this day, Azerbaijan is carrying out a plan to physically destroy the people of Artsakh, expel them from Artsakh, and forcibly subjugate the rest. Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) Minister of State Gurgen Nersisyan wrote this on Facebook.

He added as follows: "Back on November 9, 2020, when drafting the text of the Tripartite Statement and signing it, the participating parties had rightly come to the conclusion that the existence of the people of Artsakh, their security, obtaining necessary and safe products for their needs, receiving proper medical care, ensuring [their] secure communication with the outside world is possible only under the conditions of the existence of an unhindered connection with the Republic of Armenia [(RA)], for which the Lachin corridor is envisioned.

“Since December 12, 2022, Azerbaijan has intentionally created a humanitarian crisis in Artsakh, closed the road connecting Artsakh to Armenia, during that time organized murders, attempted murders, cases of property destruction and damage, used military force, demonstrated a threat to its use; and simultaneously to all that, started forcing humanitarian aid from its ‘hand’ and through the road it suggested.

"The demand by the people of Artsakh to receive humanitarian aid from the RA and to have contact with the RA is not a willful desire, but an awareness of their own security and simply self-preservation, which fully fits into the logic of international humanitarian law. A person cannot be forced to obtain a livelihood from someone who openly kills or threatens to kill that person; such phenomena were unique to slaveholding social orders.

"The Geneva Convention for the protection of civilian persons guarantees humanitarianism without discrimination and, on the contrary, prohibits humiliating, insulting humanitarianism that demeans human dignity. But today Azerbaijan is trying to deliver this kind of ‘humanity’ to the people of Artsakh by using coercion, violence and the threat of violence."