The World Briefly
February 24, 2023The Road to Peace
ArmeniaAzerbaijan
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The United Nation’s top court ordered the Azerbaijani government this week to remove its roadblock from the only route linking Armenia and the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in Azerbaijan that has raised tensions between the neighboring countries, Al Jazeera reported.
The case relates to the Lachin Corridor, the only road that connects Armenia with the Armenian-majority territory. Late last year, protesters posing as environmental activists blocked movement via the route by setting up camps.
Armenia criticized the move, saying it was part of an Azerbaijani “ethnic cleansing” campaign, Reuters noted.
Each country filed a case with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing the other of breaching a convention aimed at eliminating racial discrimination.
In its legally binding 13-2 ruling, the court said the evidence presented by Armenia showed that the blockade has prevented the transport of essential goods, medicine, and food, as well as “impeded the transfer of persons of Armenian national and ethnic origin hospitalized in Nagorno-Karabakh to medical facilities in Armenia for urgent medical care.”
The ICJ, however, rejected Armenia’s request for an order to force Azerbaijan to desist from blocking gas supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh, saying that the Armenian side did not provide enough proof that Azerbaijani officials were disrupting them.
The ICJ also dismissed Azerbaijan’s request for an order to stop or prevent Armenia from laying landmines and booby traps in areas of the region to which Azerbaijani citizens are set to return.
The ruling comes more than two years after a bloody conflict between the two former Soviet republics in Nagorno-Karabakh that killed about 6,800 soldiers and displaced 90,000 civilians.
Nagorno-Karabakh is within Azerbaijan but has been governed by ethnic Armenians backed by Armenia since the end of a separatist conflict in 1994.
A ceasefire negotiated by Russia ended the 2020 war and gave Azerbaijan control over sections of the disputed area, as well as adjacent land occupied by Armenians. Russia dispatched a peacekeeping force of 2,000 troops to protect the peace.
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