Pashinyan and Aliyev will meet at an informal summit in St. Petersburg
Dec. 25 () –
Hundreds of people have gathered this Sunday in a central square in the city of Stepanakert to demand an end to the blockade imposed by Azerbaijan in the Lachin corridor, which connects Armenia with the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno Karabakh.
For the second day in a row, citizens of the region, dressed in Nagorno Karabakh flags and banners, have called on Russian forces to guarantee security and “free movement in the area,” the Armenpress news agency reported.
An informal summit is scheduled to be held in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg for December 26 and 27 between the Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, and the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, to address the crisis.
However, a trilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin will not take place, Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov has reported. The last meeting in trilateral format between Putin, Pashinián and Aliyev took place at the end of October in Sochi, as reported by the Interfax news agency.
The Azeri authorities decided to blockade the area and suspend the gas supply, according to Armenia, so the local authorities – who began to store fuel to avoid a major crisis in the face of the blockade – asked the population to use the car only when it was necessary, giving priority to ambulances and minimum services.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been involved in various confrontations in recent years over the control of Nagorno Karabagh, a territory with a majority Armenian population that has been the focus of conflict since it decided to separate in 1988 from the Azerbaijan region integrated into the Soviet Union.
