Skirmish between Nikol Pashinyan and Ilham Aliyev at the meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council (SEEC)

Baku/25.05.23/Turan: At the end of the SEEC meeting, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan asked for the floor and expressed his attitude to the speech of I. Aliyev. He called Aliyev's words about the Zangezur corridor "territorial claims". He also accused Azerbaijan of violating the tripartite declaration on November 9, 2020.  Ilham Aliyev also made a remark that the Zangezur corridor does not imply territorial claims, but makes sense of transport communication. To this, Nikol Pashinyan reiterated that Azerbaijan illegally blocked the Lachin corridor.

Vladimir Putin tried to put an end to the discussion between Aliyev and Pashinyan, but this did not happen. In response to Pashinyan's words about the illegal blocking of the Lachin corridor, Ilham Aliyev said that a checkpoint on this road is installed on the state border and any citizen of the country of Armenian nationality can safely pass there.

Pashinyan said that there is no Lachin road, there is a Lachin corridor and only Russian peacekeepers can operate there. "We don't think the road is open. We consider it necessary to send an international mission there to assess the humanitarian crisis due to the blockade."

Concluding the skirmish between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Vladimir Putin urged the parties "not to get hung up on terminology." "It is much more important that you are ready to recognize each other's territorial integrity. We will have the opportunity to talk to the three of us and reach an agreement," Putin said. ---02B---