The unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) is facing a serious crisis. Residents of Azerbaijan blocked the Stepanakert-Goris road, depriving the local population of communication with Armenia. Then the NKR authorities announced the cessation of gas supplies there, blaming Azerbaijan for this. Baku denies the allegations and believes that the blockade of the road is justified by the actions of public figures. This is the first serious test for businessman Ruben Vardanyan, who took office as head of the NKR government just over a month ago. However, not only for him: events are developing in the zone of responsibility of the Russian peacekeepers, who have not yet managed to resolve the crisis.
Ecological overlay
The Stepanakert-Goris road connecting the NKR with Armenia has been blocked since December 12 at the point where it forks in the direction of the city of Shusha (the Armenian name is Shushi). Russian peacekeepers and Azerbaijani soldiers are there literally ten meters apart. First, Azerbaijani environmental activists and other public figures appeared in the area. They blocked traffic along the only highway connecting NKR with Armenia. Then came the curtains. The action, judging by the videos circulating on social media, involves dozens of public figures who only let through equipment marked with the Russian peacekeeping contingent.
The demonstrators immediately explained why they had come: it was a protest against the uncontrolled development of Karabakh’s natural resources. Furthermore, they are in favor of starting a mechanism to monitor the extraction of minerals. According to Ayten Huseynalieva, a participant in the action, quoted by the Azerbaijani edition of Trend, the main goal of the protest is “to stop the illegal exploitation of Azerbaijan’s natural resources by Armenians and create conditions for the work of a monitoring environmental group.”
Earlier, Azerbaijani media reported that during talks with the command of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh, which took place on December 3 and 7, an agreement was reportedly reached that Azerbaijani experts of the Ministry of Economy and other departments on December 10 would begin monitoring the mining of minerals in the territory of the NKR, which remained unchecked in Baku after the 2020 war. The speech, as indicated in the reports, was about inspections to gold and copper-molybdenum deposits. However, tracking never started, which caused protests.
Kommersant could not find information on the negotiations between the military of the Russian Federation and the Azerbaijani side in the file on the Russian Defense Ministry’s website dedicated to the peacekeeping operation in Nagorno-Karabakh. In any case, the information bulletins on the activities of the Russian peacekeepers do not mention this. But there is a message about blocking the road and negotiations to unblock it. An information bulletin dated December 13 states that “no violations were recorded in the area of responsibility of the Russian peacekeeping contingent,” and immediately states: “On December 12, the Stepanakert-Goris highway was blocked from the Azerbaijani side. The command of the Russian peacekeeping contingent is negotiating with representatives of Azerbaijan to resume the unhindered movement of civilian vehicles along the Stepanakert-Goris road.
Meanwhile, the actions of the activists have essentially been supported by the Azerbaijani and Turkish authorities. Azerbaijani President’s aide Hikmet Hajiyev said in a Dec. 12 briefing that Baku is calling for an end to the illegal exploitation of deposits in Karabakh.
“We have observed the intensification of the illegal exploitation of mineral deposits. The illegal activities must be stopped,” the official said. Commenting on the situation on the Stepanakert-Goris road, Hajiyev noted, “Civil society activists, representatives of non-governmental organizations, other activists and groups gathered on the Shusha-Khankendi road -Lachin (Khankendi is the Azerbaijani name of Stepanakert. — “huh”) to protest.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu spoke about the situation in Karabakh after the trilateral summit in Turkmenistan (see material on this page). “In this matter, Azerbaijan is right both legally and in terms of staunchly opposing illegal activities. This is why we support Azerbaijan in this just fight,” APA said quoting Cavusoglu.
The Turkish minister added that the Russian side should cooperate with Azerbaijan in the development of mineral resources, and the Armenian population living in the temporary deployment zone of Russian peacekeepers should not interfere with Azerbaijan’s monitoring.
“In conditions of total blockage”
Meanwhile, a new problem has arisen. On December 13, the gas supply to the NKR was stopped. And the authorities of the unrecognized republic, which accused Baku of blocking transport, now also accuse Azerbaijan of trying to strangle the energy sector.
The Azerbaijani side rejected these allegations. The Azerigaz company issued a press release in which it stated: “Gas supplies to the territory of the temporary deployment of Russian peacekeepers are carried out from Armenia, and these territories are not integrated into our country’s gas supply system.” At the same time, the company noted that “due to cold climatic conditions, failures in the operation of gas pipelines also occur in other mountainous and foothill regions of Azerbaijan.” To ensure a stable gas supply, Azerigaz intends to carry out diagnostics of gas pipelines.
Stepanakert, however, insists that Baku is responsible for the gas outage. “They can say what they want. The pipeline passes through the territory under their control. I do not believe in such coincidences that an accident happened by accident. Second time this year (previously, gas was cut off in March.— “huh”),” said NKR head of government Ruben Vardanyan, who moved from Moscow to Stepanakert in the fall and took office as prime minister in early November.
He described the general situation in the republic as follows: “To make it clear to readers in Russia, the current situation is like the blockade of Leningrad, when the ‘road of life’ was blocked. Another example is the West Berlin variant, where coal was transported by plane (we are talking about the actions of the USSR in 1948-1949.— “huh”)”.
Mr. Vardanyan expressed the hope that the NKR authorities “can also organize an air corridor and receive cargo at the Stepanakert airport.” “We still have electricity and telephone service, but the time when we can lose it is near. Now 120,000 people, including 30,000 children, are literally cut off from everything. But at the same time, everything works out and works out for us, there is an unbending will to overcome everything,” said the head of the NKR government.
To overcome the crisis, Ruben Vardanyan said, an operational headquarters was created, restrictions on food and medicines were introduced. “We are building a system of providing the population with everything necessary in the conditions of a complete blockade. The airport must be operational. This requires pressure from international organizations and all countries for a humanitarian corridor to appear and planes with humanitarian goods to land at Stepanakert airport. This is the only way not to depend on Azerbaijan. We need an international agreement that allows humanitarian planes to fly to Artsakh (the Armenian name for Nagorno-Karabakh.— “huh”). This is an important condition for keeping us here as a community. To prevent situations like this from happening again. The airport is fully functional,” the official said.
Commenting on possible interaction with Baku to overcome the current and other crises, Mr. Vardanyan reiterated the position he had expressed more than once: “Azerbaijan must understand that Artsakh must be recognized as a party to the negotiations. And then everything can be discussed. This is not a crowd of people living here, this is a country, this is a state. There are institutions, parliament, government, president, public organizations. We have to sit down and negotiate, there is no other option.”
Baku is unlikely to negotiate with the unrecognized republic. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly said, including during negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, that the Karabakh issue has been resolved. After the 2020 war, the Azerbaijani authorities speak of the republic as their sovereign territory, where the Armenian population lives compactly.
Kommersant’s interlocutor in Russian government agencies, who knows the situation in Karabakh well, calls the current situation a link in the chain of trends. He believes that the reason is Azerbaijan’s accumulated dissatisfaction with the implementation of agreements with Armenia, reached with the participation of Russia, in terms of unblocking important communications for Baku. “Baku is not satisfied with the delay in negotiations with Yerevan. They made pressure, including forceful pressure, produce results,” observes an informed official.
Moreover, according to him, it is quite possible that the last straw for Baku was the appearance of Ruben Vardanyan in the NKR in a leading position. “A man appeared, gaining weight, making loud statements. This alerted Baku,” Kommersant’s source suggested.
The current crisis is indeed a serious test for Mr. Vardanyan, who renounced his citizenship of the Russian Federation and moved to Karabakh in order to preserve, in his opinion, Artsakh. “Leaving your land means the end of history. This is a very difficult time for us, so everything must be done to maintain this foundation, ”he said in an interview with Kommersant in November.
