The consent of both Azerbaijan and Armenia is needed to deploy United Nations peacekeepers along the Lachin corridor, connecting Armenia with the Karabakh region, a senior Russian diplomat said on Wednesday.
In an interview with the Russian state-run RIA news agency, Petr Ilyichev underlined that Russian peacekeepers were already working to restore peace and security in Karabakh.
"The activities of Russian peacekeepers are supported both in Baku and in Yerevan, which is of key importance in the conditions of uncertainty of the final status of the territory," said Ilyichev, who directs the Department of International Organizations of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Among international and foreign organizations, only the International Committee of the Red Cross is working in Karabakh, while other bodies could not "maintain an equidistant position with the parties," he added.
"The practical implementation of the idea of sending an international peacekeeping contingent, which will also require U.N. Security Council sanctions, is hardly realistic," he said.
Ilyichev noted that U.N. missions did not always enjoy the trust of receiving countries, with some asking them to withdraw due to low efficiency.
"Therefore, the question is not so much who authorized the peacekeeping operation, but rather the presence of goodwill on both sides of the conflict in ending it and eliminating its consequences," he said.
Since Dec. 12, Azerbaijani ecologists representing nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) had been protesting Armenia's illegal exploitation of natural resources in the Karabakh region, where Russian peacekeepers have been stationed since the end of the fall 2020 conflict and a January 2021 pact with Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Relations between the former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military illegally occupied Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.
The clashes erupted on Sept. 27, 2020, with the Armenian Army attacking civilians and Azerbaijani forces, violating several humanitarian cease-fire agreements. During the 44-day conflict, Azerbaijan liberated several cities and around 300 settlements and villages that had been occupied by Armenia for almost 30 years.
The fighting ended with a Russian-brokered agreement on Nov. 10, 2020, which was seen as a victory for Azerbaijan and a defeat for Armenia.
However, the cease-fire has been broken several times since then.
On the Black Sea grain deal, signed last year to avert a global food crisis by allowing for the export of Ukrainian grain, Ilyichev said Moscow had "requalified" it as a commercial initiative, rather than humanitarian.
Arguing that the initiative had upended its initially stated humanitarian goals and now amounted to the "commercial export of Ukrainian grain," he said the cargo primarily went to high-income countries, while poor nations got less than 3%.
Parts of the deal that suggest sanctions on Russian grain and fertilizer exports be lifted have meanwhile been ignored, he said, with additional restrictions being imposed by the European Union.
Without hard results on alleviating the restrictions on Russian agricultural products, the deal, which ends in March, "becomes meaningless," he stressed.
