US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a telephonic conversation with the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev deliberated upon the significance of restoring the Lachin Corridor for commercial and private vehicles, US Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement. "Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev today to underscore the importance of Azerbaijan-Armenia peace discussions and pledged continued US support. Secretary Blinken shared his belief that peace was possible," the statement read.
The statement added, "he also expressed the United States’ deep concern that Azerbaijan’s establishment of a checkpoint on the Lachin Corridor undermines efforts to establish confidence in the peace process, and emphasized the importance of reopening the Lachin Corridor to commercial and private vehicles as soon as possible."
The press office of the President of Azerbaijan in a statement said, "President Ilham Aliyev noted [that] Azerbaijan supports the peace agenda and that Azerbaijan had been the initiator of starting peace treaty talks and normalisation of relations with Armenia."
The statement further read, "With respect to setting up the ‘Lachin’ checkpoint on the Azerbaijan-Armenia border, President Ilham Aliyev said that the checkpoint had been set up in accordance with Azerbaijan’s sovereign rights and all international rules. The Azerbaijani President underlined that the aim was to ensure control rather than restrict movement as [the] passage is already allowed through the checkpoint."
Following a meeting with her Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan last Friday, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna declared that Azerbaijan's installation of a checkpoint in the Lachin Corridor violates the existing agreements between Yerevan and Baku. On April 28, Armenia's Foreign Minister Mirzoyan said that since the Lachin Corridor issue had already been resolved by the trilateral statement of November 9, 2020, Yerevan had no plans to discuss it with Baku.
On September 27, 2020, the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh got worse. A joint statement on the complete cessation of hostilities was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on November 9, 2020. At that point, the parties halted at their positions, Baku took control of a number of neighbourhoods, and Russian troops were stationed along the contact line and in the Lachin Corridor.
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