Baku Banned Aid Delivery from French Local Self-Government Bodies to Stepanakert

Another truck has joined the 19 humanitarian trucks sent from Armenia to Artsakh. A number of local self-government bodies of France sent aid to Artsakh, which reached Kornidzor and stopped. The regional councils of Paye-de-la-Loire, Hauts-de-France, Île-de-France, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Occitania have voted in favor of providing aid to the 120,000 Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, who are on the brink of genocide and starvation, the deputy director of Figaro newspaper Jean-Christophe Buisson announced on his Twitter.

The local self-government bodies of France have provided the Coordinating Council of Armenian Organizations of France (CCAF) with the cargo to be transported to Armenia. Taking into account the fact that France is one of the mediators of the conflict settlement, the foreign ministry of the country would not allow official aid to be provided to Nagorno-Karabakh on behalf of France under existing conditions. Earlier, Alpha News reported that the Paris City Council unanimously voted in favor of the initiative to send humanitarian aid of 20,000 euros to Artsakh. Arno Ngacha, Paris Deputy Mayor, served as the author of the initiative. He said:

“We regret that the President of France does not launch the initiative to settle the situation in the UN Security Council, while we, 170 politicians, recently used Figaro’s platform and appealed to him, warning that the people of Nagorno-Karabakh are subject to ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan.”

It should be noted that Azerbaijan, violating the provisions of the three-party agreement of November 9, 2020, has illegally blocked the Lachin (Berdzor) corridor connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia since December 12, 2022 on the pretext of environmental protests. Baku continues to ignore the appeals of Moscow, Washington and Brussels as well as the request of the UN International Court of Justice to take all measures to guarantee the uninterrupted movement of persons, vehicles and cargo in both directions through the Lachin Corridor.

The blockade of Artsakh still continues after the end of the “environmental protest”. Azerbaijan has set up an illegal checkpoint at the Lachin border, and after the provocation near the Hakari bridge on June 15, Artsakh was blockaded completely, deprived of the supply of all kinds of goods. Due to the blockade of the only road connecting Artsakh to Armenia, 120,000 citizens of Artsakh are deprived of basic living conditions and the opportunity to move freely. Even patients cannot be transported to Armenia.