By Mark Dovich
The leadership of the Russian peacekeeping contingent said in a meeting Tuesday with Karabakh politicians that the alternative route connecting the region with Armenia will have the legal status of a corridor, according to a read-out from the Karabakh National Assembly.
“It was noted that the new route will have the same corridor status, and all the security components will be kept, from the five-kilometer security zone to the deployment of Russian peacekeeping forces at checkpoints,” the statement said.
Yerevan, Baku, and Moscow have not publicly confirmed or denied the news.
The heads of all five political parties represented in Karabakh’s parliament requested the meeting partly in response to “the recent statement” by Maxim Seleznyov, a senior diplomat at the Russian Embassy in Yerevan, according to the read-out.
Last week, Seleznyov told Radio Azatutyun that Russian peacekeepers “will not move a single centimeter” from the current route until the new road is ready for use.
The Russia-brokered ceasefire that ended the 2020 Karabakh war “spells out the steps, the sequence of steps,” he said. “First, the corridor is completed, and as it comes into operation, Russian peacekeepers take control of a five-kilometer corridor around this road.” He did not elaborate further.
Armenia is due to cede control of the existing Lachin corridor to Azerbaijan on Thursday, with all remaining Armenian residents of the area ordered to evacuate by that day as part of a “civilian defense plan.”
Also watch: Three days left till Armenia hands over Lachin and Aghavno to Azerbaijan
The Lachin corridor, a five-kilometer wide strip of land presently controlled by Russian peacekeepers that contains the only road connecting Armenia and Karabakh, has become the source of escalating disagreement between Yerevan and Baku in recent weeks.
Azerbaijan reported it captured some strategic areas near the current route earlier this month in one of the biggest outbreaks of hostilities in the region since the 2020 war.
The ceasefire that ended the war says “a plan for the construction” of a new road that also connects Armenia and Karabakh while bypassing the current route should “be determined within the next three years.” Once the alternative road is completed, Russian peacekeepers are supposed to hand over control of the old route to Azerbaijan and relocate to the new route.
Azerbaijani construction crews say they have already finished their portion of the route, while Armenia does not expect its section to be completed until next spring.
It remains unclear how traffic could pass along an unfinished road. It also remains unclear what will happen to a number of crucial pieces of infrastructure located within the current corridor, including a high-voltage electrical line, gas pipeline, and internet cable, all running from Armenia to Karabakh.
In addition, the read-out of Tuesday’s meeting said the Russian peacekeepers “assured that they will make additional efforts to prevent similar violations (to this month’s major escalation) in the future and ensure the proper security of our population.”
Anti-Russian sentiment is reportedly growing in Karabakh following a major escalation in the region earlier this month that left at least two Armenian soldiers and one Azerbaijani soldier dead.
In a lengthy address a few weeks ago, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called out Russian peacekeepers’ inability or unwillingness to prevent escalations in Karabakh, saying their failures “bring to light questions of a systemic nature” and “raise questions among the Armenian public about the purpose and essence of the peacekeeping operation.”