Azatutyun.am Russia has called on Azerbaijan and Armenia to resolve the issue of natural gas supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh as soon as possible “to avoid further aggravation of the difficult humanitarian situation in the region.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said during a weekly news briefing on Thursday that Moscow has been in contacts with both sides on the matter.
“Corresponding work is being carried out through our country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Energy, as well as Gazprom. We proceed from the understanding that one should not aggravate what is already a difficult humanitarian situation, and ordinary people should not suffer,” Zakharova said, as quoted by Russia’s Tass news agency.
On Tuesday, the Armenian Foreign Ministry accused Azerbaijan of cutting off gas supply to Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia on territory controlled by its military.
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As a result of the second disruption of gas supply to Stepanakert and other towns in Nagorno-Karabakh within a space of two weeks ethnic Armenians in the region face difficulties in heating their homes in still freezing temperatures as well as in running their businesses, including bakeries.
Nagorno-Karabakh, an autonomous region in Soviet Azerbaijan, has been claiming its independence from Baku since the collapse of the Soviet Union and a separatist war waged in the early 1990s that also led to ethnic Armenians’ making territorial gains inside Azerbaijan proper.
The standoff with Baku led to another war in 2020 as a result of which Azerbaijani forces gained control of parts of Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as seven adjacent districts that had been under Armenian control since 1994.
Some 2,000 Russian troops were deployed in the region to monitor the ceasefire following a Moscow-brokered truce.
