By Susan Badalian
YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Azerbaijani troops have not withdrawn from community lands of an Armenian border village occupied by them last week, local residents insisted on Monday, April 3, denying the Armenian government’s implicit claims to the contrary.
Azerbaijani army units redeployed by the morning of Thursday, March 30, to more parts of the Lachin district sandwiched between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, completing a change in the route of the Lachin corridor which began last August. Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) said hours later that they advanced up to 300 meters into Armenian territory at five local sections of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border adjacent to the village of Tegh.
Local government officials and farmers said Tegh lost a large part of its agricultural land and pastures. Some of them said that the Azerbaijani military made bigger territorial gains than is admitted by official Yerevan.
The Azerbaijani advance also caused an uproar in Yerevan, with Armenian opposition leaders blaming Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan for the loss of yet another part of Armenia’s internationally recognized territory.
In another statement released on Saturday, the NSS claimed that the situation in that border area “improved significantly” as a result of negotiations held by Armenian and Azerbaijani officials. It did not elaborate.
