Pashinyan: Artsakh is on verge of humanitarian catastrophe
YEREVAN, March 24. /ARKA/. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan accused today Azerbaijan of creating a humanitarian catastrophe in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) by cutting off natural gas supplies from Armenia.
"For three days now the citizens of Artsakh have been deprived of natural gas. As you know, on March 7, the gas pipeline supplying gas to Artsakh from Armenia was blown up in the territory controlled by Azerbaijan. Under various pretexts Azerbaijan did not allow the repair of the pipeline and eventually repaired it itself, but, according to our information, installed a valve on the gas pipeline. On March 18, the gas supply to Artsakh was restored for four days, but on March 21, Azerbaijan simply shut off the valve," Pashinyan said.
Pashinyan pointed out that on March 7 an unprecedented amount of snow fell in Artsakh over the past 30 years, and on March 21 the temperature dropped to 8 degrees below zero, while the snow depth in some places reached 1.5 meters.
"Under these conditions Artsakh was deliberately deprived of natural gas for heating homes, kindergartens, schools and hospitals. This is enough to understand that as a result of Azerbaijan's actions Artsakh has appeared on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe," he said.
Pashinyan said that Azerbaijan "is doing the people of Artsakh a favor with its actions," as this gas supply case is a very accurate and concise description of the Artsakh conflict for the international community.
"Now the international community can understand the essence of the Karabakh conflict without having to re-read hundreds of pages... It undeniably shows Azerbaijan's policy towards Armenians of Artsakh- to make it impossible for them to live in their own homeland," he said.
According to Pashinyan, Azerbaijan is trying to deflect Armenia from the peace agenda, delegitimize it and to implement its policy of fomenting new escalations and wars.
"But we must not give in to these and other such provocations. I said that we need strong nerves to implement the peace agenda, and we must not deviate in any way from the strategy we proclaimed," he stressed. -0-
