Armenians anxiously follow the construction of a road bypassing Lachin

In more than a month, Azerbaijan will return the city of Lachin under its full control, while the Armenians will move between Karabakh and Armenia along a new road built for them. Russian peacekeepers will also move there. The new road will replace the existing route through the settlements of Lachin and Zabuh (Armenian - Ahavno). This is determined by paragraph 6 of the Tripartite Statement of November 9 (10), 2020.

In February, Saleh Mammadov, chairman of the board of the State Automobile Roads Agency of Azerbaijan, said that the road bypassing Lachin would be commissioned by July this year. "This 28-kilometer-long road will connect six villages in the Lachin region. A 17-kilometer section and a bridge across the Khakari River have already been built," Mammadov said.

On April 21, the State Automobile Roads Agency of Azerbaijan announced the technical characteristics of the project on its official website:

“The length of the new road will be 32 kilometers. According to the project, the width of the carriageway of the two-lane road will be seven meters, the width of the roadway will be 12 meters. The necessary forces have been involved in the construction to complete the work this year,” the agency noted.

Road construction began in August 2021.

Armenians do not participate in the work, the heads of the communities of Armenian villages told the Yerevan media. They watch the construction from a distance.

Headman of the village of Kichik Galaderesi (Hin Shen - Arm.) of the Shushi region Manvel Sargsyan said that the Azerbaijani workers have been actively building near the village for about a month.

According to him, the Azerbaijanis bypassed it and continued construction in the direction of the village of Mets Galaderesi (Mets Shen - Armenian) and the existing highway in Khankendi. In about a week they will reach him. He does not rule out that the work (connection to the highway) will be completed by May.

"Half of Baku works here, if everyone picks up at least one scoop, the road will be completed quickly," Sargsyan said.

The blogger of the "Caucasian Knot" made a short video about the construction, in which the Armenian residents disagree about the benefits or harm to the Karabakh Armenians from the new road. “Let's wait and see,” one of them says.

The report shows how local Armenians cut wood in the construction zone and take away firewood for their needs. For the same reason, Armenians dig old water pipes out of the ground.

An Armenian blogger says that Azerbaijani builders work without guards, local Armenians communicate with Azerbaijanis.

“The residents of the villages of Mets Shena and Hin Shena pass this road every day, and the road is closed by machinery and repairmen. You either have to wait a very long time, or approach the Azerbaijanis and ask them to open the road for a minute to move. To the credit of the builders, they do not fix any special obstacles for the passage. They even said that there was a case when the car got stuck and stalled, and they came up and helped...,” writes a blogger from Khankendi. He reports that now only a few Armenian families remain in Lachin, and they will leave the city along with Russian military personnel.

www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/blogs/83785/posts/53837

In 2025, the five-year term for the presence of Russian peacekeeping forces in the Armenian part of Karabakh expires. According to the tripartite Statement, 6 months before the expiration of this period, one of the parties may declare its unwillingness to extend the mission of peacekeepers for the next five years.

In various speeches, Azerbaijani leaders made it clear that there would be no extension of the stay of Russians in Karabakh after 2025. However, the Armenian side states that the Russians must remain in Karabakh, since they alone guarantee the security of the Armenians in this region.

The Armenian opposition uses the construction of new roads in Karabakh by Azerbaijan as a political argument against Pashinyan. “Azerbaijan, in addition to political, diplomatic and military pressure, also continues to exert infrastructural pressure on the Armenian states, squeezing its communication grip around Artsakh and Syunik. … It is noteworthy that Baku aims to complete the construction of these major new roads by 2024. Obviously, after the expiration of the mandate of the Russian peacekeepers, Azerbaijan will be ready in terms of infrastructure and will confront both Russia and Armenia with a fact.

Until there is a change of power in Armenia, there will be no deep awareness of these problems. The change of power through elections did not work, and we are all wasting time as a nation, while Azerbaijan is also “arming” with infrastructures and is going to expose Artsakh, Armenia, and also to communication expansion,” the telegram channel writes.