Parliament speaker calls for concrete steps to end Artsakh blockade

• 01.05.2023, 14:54
•  World,  Armenia

The speaker of the Artsakh parliament, Artur Tovmasyan, calls on the international community to take concrete steps to put an end to the Azerbaijani blockade of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), Panorama.am reports.

The only road connecting Artsakh to Armenia and the outside world, known as the Lachin Corridor, has been blocked by Azerbaijan for 25 days now.

In an appeal to the leaders of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair countries, Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.S. President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron, he stresses that “the Artsakh issue was the only conflict which the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair countries had almost identical approaches on.”

“In the face of an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, the Artsakh people not only need direct statements, but also practical and visible steps. Seriously ill patients have no access to the necessary medicine and medical services. Artsakh is deprived of baby food, foodstuffs and other basic goods,” Tovmasyan said.

“We call on the civilized world, in particular the Minsk Group co-chairing countries, to take concrete steps to re-open the corridor or to establish an air bridge by operating the Stepanakert airport in an effort to ease the alarming humanitarian crisis in Artsakh in winter,” reads the statement.