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Fuad Muxtar-Aqbabali

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The open-ended protest of the Azerbaijani eco-activists on the Khankandi-Lachin road against the illegal exploitation of mineral deposits in the Karabakh economic region of Azerbaijan has entered the 36th day today.

In defiance of the picket on the sole road linking the ethnic Armenians in Karabakh with Armenia bypassing Shusha and Lachin District under full control of the Azerbaijani army, the protesters are not obstructing the passage of civil vehicles as well as the transport means of the Russian peacekeeping contingent.

The command of the peacekeepers in the region, and Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mariya Zakharova have repeatedly confirmed that the road is operational and has always been open for civil purposes.

However, malicious gossips have it that the road is allegedly blocked and Armenians in Karabakh are in dire conditions, though facts are stubborn, and the major actor in the region, that is, the command of the Russian peacekeeping contingent has disproved it more than once.

One would stick to the saying "the dogs bark, but the caravan goes on" but when foreign officials at the service of the Armenian diaspora come up with unverified, one-sided, and clearly malicious intentions, one cannot but respond and firmly and decisively.

“Transportation through the Lachin Corridor has been blocked for over a month. Each day commercial traffic and humanitarian assistance cannot flow freely to Nagorno-Karabakh, and the potential for a humanitarian crisis increases. Free movement through the corridor must be restored,” Samantha Power, Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), alleged in her tweet.

Under the November 10, 2020, trilateral agreement, signed by Azerbaijani, Russian, and Armenian leaders, the Lachin corridor is under the control of Russian peacekeepers. Unfortunately, the Russian peacekeepers failed to live up to their commitments and dozens of cases, documented by Azerbaijan, revealed that the Russians in the area were not up to the mission and let Iranian military trainers, Armenian terrorists, and separatists move freely to and fro and plant landmines in sovereign areas to kill innocent Azerbaijanis.

In addition, prior to the protest of the Azerbaijani eco-activists, the separatist in concert with the Russian peacekeepers plundered natural resources, which actually played a major trigger for the protest. Against this backdrop and knee-jerk reactions of the Russian peacekeepers to the justified demands of Azerbaijan, eco-activists, NGO representatives and people from all walks of society took to the street on December 12, 2022, to say no to the ransacking that resulted in the indefinite protest on the Shusha road, which today marks the 36th day.

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