MOSCOW (Azatutyun) — The humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh is a result of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s decision to recognize the region as part of Azerbaijan, Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted on Tuesday, September 12.
Echoing statements by the Russian Foreign Ministry, Putin said Yerevan is therefore wrong to criticize Moscow for not unblocking the Lachin corridor effectively shut down by Baku in December.
“The president of Azerbaijan is now telling me, ‘Well, you know that Armenia has admitted that Karabakh is ours, that the issue of Karabakh’s status is closed’… What should we say? There is nothing we can say,” he told an annual economic forum in the Russian city of Vladivostok.
“If Armenia recognizes that Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan… then what are we talking about? This is the key component of the whole problem. The status of Karabakh was decided by Armenia itself,” added Putin.
The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, made the same point on August 30 in response to the Armenian criticism. She cited Pashinyan’s and Aliyev’s joint statements on mutual recognition of each other’s territorial integrity that were issued after their talks organized by the European Union in October 2022 and May 2023. The Armenian Foreign Ministry hit back at Zakharova in an extensive written response.
Tensions between the two longtime allies deepened further in the following days, with Pashinyan declaring that Armenia’s reliance on Russia for defense and security has proven a “strategic mistake.” Moscow condemned Pashinyan’s remarks. The Russian Foreign Ministry listed them among “a series of unfriendly steps” taken by Yerevan, in a note of protest handed to the Armenian ambassador on September 8.
