BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 18. The Washington Times, an American conservative daily newspaper, has published an article in support of Armenian propaganda statements, which accuses Azerbaijan of the so-called "blockade" of the Armenian population in Karabakh, Trend reports.
The article compares the Armenian residents of Karabakh to the Bosnian and Herzegovinian Muslims who suffered from the genocide in 1995, referring to Khankendi as the "new Srebrenica".
In order to prevent the illegal transfer of personnel, ammunition, mines, and other military equipment from Armenia to Armenian armed formations in the territory of Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan established a border checkpoint at the beginning of the Lachin-Shusha road, on the border with Armenia, on April 23, 2023. Since then, the Armenian population of Karabakh has been given the opportunity to freely travel through the Lachin border checkpoint from the Azerbaijani side.
Various footage disseminated from the border checkpoint testify to the absence of any obstacles or difficulties for the passage of the Armenian residents of Karabakh through the border crossing point.
At the same time, Azerbaijan regularly allows the passage of vehicles belonging to the Red Cross for the delivery of food, medicines, and other necessities to the residents of Karabakh.
However, the Armenian side continues to hinder peaceful negotiations with Azerbaijan. Numerous armed provocations by illegal armed formations of Armenia, as well as repeated attempts to smuggle various types of contraband through the Lachin border crossing point on vehicles belonging to the International Committee of the Red Cross, hinder the establishment of a peaceful process with Azerbaijan and the integration of the Armenians of Karabakh into Azerbaijani society.
The authors of the article should be reminded that it was Armenia that has been committing genocide against the Azerbaijani population for thirty years. Three years before the events in Srebrenica, Armenia committed a monstrous war crime against the peaceful Azerbaijani population of the town of Khojaly in Karabakh. The victims of the Khojaly genocide were 613 civilians, including 63 children, 106 women, and 70 elderly people. Nothing is known to this day about the fate of the 150 people who went missing that day. And unlike those guilty of the Srebrenica genocide, those who committed the massacre in Khojaly have still not been punished for their crimes.
Thus, against the backdrop of a peace process facilitated by the EU and the US, articles like these that discredit Azerbaijan's efforts to establish relations with both the Armenians of Karabakh and the Armenian government directly hinder the establishment of long-term peace in the region and are a continuation of Armenia's destructive policy in this regard.