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March 28
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Despite the decision of the International Court of Justice published on February 22, Azerbaijan continues to illegally close the only passable asphalted road of the Lachin corridor connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. This was announced by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at Thursday’s Cabinet meeting of the Armenian government.

"As a result of this, the humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh continues to be tense. At the same time, we see specific actions by Azerbaijan aimed at aggravating—from a military point of view—the situation on the line of contact with Nagorno-Karabakh. The latest blatant manifestation of this was the killing of three Nagorno-Karabakh police officers on March 5," said the Prime Minister.

According to Pashinyan, this incident took place in the zone of responsibility of the Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh.

"It is important to record that the Ministry of Defense of Russia clearly stated in the message released on March 6 that the initiator of the incident is the Azerbaijani side. In the message of the Ministry of Defense of Russia, it is also said that proceedings are being conducted, with the participation of the representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan, to find out the details of the incident.

In this regard, I believe that the fact that the murders of Nagorno-Karabakh policemen took place in the Lachin corridor should be given a special evaluation. As you remember, according to point 6 of the 2020 trilateral statement, the Lachin corridor is not only the road closed by Azerbaijan since December 12, 2022, but also the 5km wide security zone; therefore, the killings carried out by Azerbaijan on March 5 is a triple violation of the tripartite statement of November 9[, 2020]. Not only the ceasefire, not only the Nagorno-Karabakh line of contact, but also the 5km zone of the Lachin corridor has been violated," Pashinyan announced.

He said that Azerbaijan's state and near-state propaganda creates a media background for a large-scale attack on Nagorno-Karabakh for a long time, and the trend of tension is also visible on the ground.

"Our assessment remains the same: the military-political leadership of Azerbaijan makes preparations for [Armenian] ethnic cleansing and genocide against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh," said the Prime Minister.

Pashinyan said that he considers it important and urgent that Armenia take measures to launch international mechanisms for the prevention of genocides.

"In particular, it’s about the mechanisms planned within the framework of the United Nations; I have given relevant instructions to the foreign ministry about this," he said.

Also, the Armenian PM noted that the work on sending an international fact-finding mission to the Lachin corridor and Nagorno-Karabakh is ongoing.

"I believe the fact-finding mission is important to address Azerbaijan's baseless claims that Armenia has an army in Nagorno-Karabakh and that military transports are carried out from Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh. These claims are groundless, Azerbaijan is trying to make them a new pretext for regional military escalation; therefore, dispatching an international fact-finding mission becomes unnecessary in this regard as well," said Nikol Pashinyan.

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