BAKU, September 13 Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan, head of the department for Foreign policy issues of the presidential administration Hikmet Hajiyev called the statements of the American senator, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Bob Menendez about the blockade of Karabakh by Baku as false.
On Tuesday, Menendez said at a Senate meeting that the Azerbaijani blockade of the Armenians of Karabakh has all the signs of genocide. Menendez also presented photographs of the first victim of the famine.
“Instead of responding to serious allegations of corruption, Congressman Menendez is lying to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with false information and a fake photo. The man in the photo died of cancer. The Armenians themselves are ashamed to use these blatant lies after providing medical evidence. Similar lobbying, the “money talks” approach, outright lies and racist hatred towards Azerbaijanis and others are damaging the image and global reputation of the US Congress,” Hajiyev wrote on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
On April 23, 2023, Azerbaijani border guards established a checkpoint on the border with Armenia – it appeared at the beginning of the road in the Lachin corridor, which leads to Stepanakert. The checkpoint is located on a new highway built after the 2020 truce to bypass Lachin – at the bridge over the Khakari River, 16 kilometers east of the village of Teh, Syunik region of Armenia. Near the facility there is an observation post of the Russian peacekeeping contingent. Earlier, since December 2022, the same road was blocked by Azerbaijani environmental activists – according to them, the action was an expression of protest against the illegal exploitation of mineral deposits in Karabakh.
The appearance of the checkpoint in Baku was explained by the illegal use of the road to Stepanakert by the Armenian side and security threats. The Armenian Foreign Ministry called the establishment of the checkpoint a gross violation of the trilateral statement of the leaders of Armenia, the Russian Federation and Azerbaijan in 2020. The Armenian authorities also draw attention to the fact that blocking the Lachin corridor led to a humanitarian catastrophe in Nagorno-Karabakh.
At the end of May 2023, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan stated that his country recognizes the sovereignty of Azerbaijan along with the territory of Karabakh, on a total area of 86.6 thousand square kilometers. Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev said that Azerbaijan and Armenia could sign a peace treaty in the near future if Yerevan does not change its position. In September 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Armenian leadership, in essence, recognized the sovereignty of Azerbaijan over Karabakh, the status of Karabakh was determined by Yerevan itself.
