Russia asks Azerbaijan to unblock road between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh

Russia urged Azerbaijan to fully unblock the Lachin corridor on Friday, the only road that links Armenia with the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave where over 100,000 ethnic Armenians live who rely on it for vital supplies.
Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, but its inhabitants are predominantly ethnic Armenians and it broke away from Baku’s control in a war in the early 1990s.
After heavy fighting and a Russian-brokered ceasefire, Azerbaijan in 2020 took over areas that had been controlled by ethnic Armenians in and around the mountain enclave and Baku is now pushing for ethnic Armenian government and military structures to be dissolved and for the population to accept
Azerbaijani passports.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Friday that the entrance to the corridor had been blocked by Azerbaijan in a move she said increased tensions at a time when Baku and Armenia are trying to agree a peace treaty.