The Blockade of the Lachin Corridor – An Azerbaijani Powerplay?

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Mia Jin Haagensli, MSc Politics of the Middle East

Since 12 December, the Lachin corridor, a mountain road linking Armenia and the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, has been blocked. e corridor is the only road connecting the region, also known as Artsakh, with Armenia. us, it is considered ´the lifeline´ of its residents. With a supply of food, medicine, gas and other necessities only lasting a few days from when the blockade began, we are now looking at a humanitarian crisis. e vast majority, around 99%, of the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh are Armenian. With the corridor blocked, the situation will get more challenging by the day for the 120,000 Armenians, 30,000 of them children, 20,000 elderly and 9,000 su ering from disabilities, living in the enclave. According to Mesrob Kassemdjian, a doctoral researcher at the Politics and International Studies Department at SOAS, “Azerbaijan is trying to coerce Armenia into making a major territorial concession which would see Yerevan relinquish part of Southern Armenia. is would allow Baku to have a land bridge connecting Azerbaijan to the Nakhchivan exclave while cutting Armenia o from Iran. at way, Armenia, already a landlocked country, will be completely surrounded by a hostile Azerbaijan and Turkey, and also their ally and client Georgia”. Kassemdjian fears that the blockade will not be li ed until Armenia accepts this deal – a scenario he predicts could spell the beginning of the end for Armenia.

Nagorno-Karabakh is located within the internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan. However, the contemporary psycho-political borders of the South Caucasus were, as stated by Kassemdjian, “imposed upon the region by the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union” resulting in Nagorno-Karabakh’s predominantly Armenian indigenous population being excluded from Armenia and placed within Azerbaijan. Upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Armenia and Azerbaijan entered into a con ict over the disputed territory. Over the years, there have been various con icts, two of the most notable being a war from 1988 to 1994 as well as one in 2020.From 1988 until 1994, the majority of the Armenians of NagornoKarabakh were in an ethnic, territorial con ict with Azerbaijan. is con ict, e First Nagorno-Karabakh War, took place as the parliament of Nagorno-Karabakh voted in favour of uniting with Armenia. A referendum was held, one which the Azerbaijani population of the region boycotted. As Azerbaijan wished to suppress the separatist movement and Armenia was in favour of it, a ´full-scale war´ broke out in 1991. At one point, Armenian forces gained control of Artsakh and its seven adjacent territories. For almost 30 years, the Lachin corridor was the source of free movement of people and goods. is changed in 2020 with e Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. Azerbaijan, with the support of Turkey, an overload of weaponry from Israel and a military budget more than three times the size of their adversary’s, defeated Armenia and seized territories previously administered by them, including the Lachin corridor. When Armenia lost, they insisted on not giving up control of the corridor in fear of Azerbaijan using it as a means of control. As Celine Hovanisjan, an Armenian-Norwegian IR student in Norway, stated, “it seems the common consensus was that if they were to gain control of the corridor, they could use it to control Armenians of NagornoKarabakh at any time. What we feared could happen is now happening”. What is now happening, in the words of Kassemdjian, is an Azerbaijani state-sponsored initiative where soldiers, portraying themselves as eco-activists, are blocking the corridor. According to Kassemdjian, what is said in the media to be a way of protesting the illegal mining of natural resources in the region is, in reality, the Azerbaijani state showing that it can terrorize the Armenian population at any time.

Amidst this, there is also the aspect of Russian involvement. With disputes over territory, Russia came in to function as a mediator. Set up through a trilateral agree- e humanitarian crisis happening in Nagorno-Karabakh will have devastating consequences. Much damage is already done, but not to the point of no return. According to Kassemdjian, “solidarity, support and, most importantly, acknowledgement, could result in Azerbaijan backing down. Remember, we are all human beings. We are better than this.”

Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, Samantha Power, stated in late December, ´ e closure [of the corridor] has the potential to cause a signi cant humanitarian crisis´. With the corridor having been blocked for well over a month, it seems the damage is already done. As explained by Hovanisjan, ´the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh have not had the most advanced systems of producing food, medicine, and other necessities as they have been able to rely on their close ties with, and proximity to, Armenia, even more so a er losing an extensive amount of land as a result of the 2020 war´. Before the blockade, around 400 tons of food and medicine were delivered to the region daily. With roads blocked, most markets are closed and pharmacies and shops are nearly empty. In addition, the blockade hinders around 1,100 people from returning to their homes in NagornoKarabakh, separating almost 300 children from their parents.

With the crisis becoming more critical by the day, it is concerning that many major news outlets have yet to comment on the event. When asked why this may be, both Hovanisjan and Kassemdjian pointed towards oil and gas investments. Since 2022, Azerbaijan has exported over 7 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Europe and as of July same year, an agreement doubling these exports by 2027, was signed. British Petroleum alone produced over 20 million tonnes of oil in the country in 2022. As Kassemdjian stated, “is it unlikely we will see anything negative about Azerbaijan in the British press, even in Western press. When it comes to business, human rights fall short”.

A longer version of this article will be available online as a digital exclusive at www.soasspirit.co.uk ment, Russian peacekeepers were given the job to control the corridor and prevent an illegal blockade. As such a blockade is now in full bloom, it seems, as Hovanisjan stated, “the peacekeepers are not doing an adequate job.”