YEREVAN (RFE/RL) — Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on December 7 again threatened to forcibly open a land “corridor” that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave via Armenia southeastern Syunik province.
Aliyev recalled last year war over Nagorno-Karabakh when he commented on the transport link sought by Baku during a visit to a region in northern Azerbaijan on Monday.
“Armenia and the whole world saw [during the war] that nobody could stop us… I was demanding that they present us with a date for the liberation of our lands before we stop [hostilities.] I am saying the same thing now: tells us when the Zangezur corridor will be opened and there will be no problems,” he said in remarks published Tuesday morning.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry condemned the remarks as a threat to Armenia’s territorial integrity. It said they also run counter to understandings that were reached by Aliyev and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan during their talks hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on November 26.
Speaking right after those talks, the three leaders reported major progress towards the opening of transport links between Armenia and Azerbaijan envisaged by the Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the six-week war in November 2020.
Putin said a Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani working group dealing with the matter will announce in the coming days “decisions which we agreed today.”
