The strain in the disputed Karabakh region has become an excuse for Armenia to backtrack on stumbling peace negotiations with archrival Azerbaijan, according to the latter’s deputy foreign minister.

Armenia is using the tense situation on the ground as a pretext to walk away from the negotiation table, making it impossible to predict when a peace treaty could be signed, much less this year, Elnur Mammadov told Daily Sabah in an exclusive interview.

The minister was referring to an increasingly concerning standoff between his country and its neighbor over Karabakh, a 150-square-kilometer (57.9-square-mile) territory dividing the ex-Soviet republics and a source of deadly discord since Armenia invaded the enclave in 1988.

The pair fought two wars over the territory, first in early 1990s and again in 2020, when Azerbaijan liberated several cities, villages and settlements from illegal Armenian occupation during 44 days of clashes. The war ended with a Russia-brokered peace agreement, and Moscow deployed a peacekeeping contingent to oversee it.

Route crisis

Currently, there is an escalation on the line of contact, shelling of positions and a buildup of military potential on both sides. Azerbaijan and Armenia have accused each other of violating the agreement.

Especially since last December, tension has steadily risen between the South Caucasus neighbors over the blockade of the Lachin corridor – the only land route connecting Karabakh to Armenia – and has left nearly a dozen people dead on both sides.

Azerbaijan has said it set up a checkpoint on the short mountainous road over security reasons, citing the transfer of weapons and ammunition to its region, and proposed the use of the Aghdam-Khankendi road for shipments; while Yerevan has claimed a "humanitarian catastrophe" was unfolding in Karabakh, demanding the U.N. to intervene.

In late August, Baku sent two trucks laden with 40 tons of flour for the Armenians in the region, but they were stranded at the checkpoint of the Russian contingent on the Aghdam-Khankendi road for over a week.

However, 15 tons of humanitarian aid arrived from Azerbaijan in the region via the Russian Red Cross on Wednesday, marking the first time the Aghdam-Khankendi road was used for deliveries.

"This is the shortest and safest route to use for shipments to get to the region," Mammadov previously said in a press release, urging the self-proclaimed Karabakh administration to "not further impede the delivery of goods to local Armenians."

"Its usage is important because it’s the first time in over three decades the road from Azerbaijan is being used to transport any goods to a territory that was under occupation," Mammadov told Daily Sabah.

"It’s also significant in being the first step in the reintegration of Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian minority into the political, social, cultural and economic domain of Azerbaijan," he added.

For Mammadov, the reason why Armenia has been so strongly opposed to the alternative route comes from "the fact that using this road would actually lead to the process of reintegration of ethnic Armenians, which they oppose because they still have irredentist claims on sovereign Azerbaijani territory."

Armenia is still trying to ignite tensions in Karabakh with this attitude, the deputy minister noted, citing the financing of some 10,000 troops stationed in the territory in "clear violation" of the 2020 tripartite agreement that ended the Second Karabakh War and stipulates Armenia withdraw its military and cease armament.

Mammadov accused Yerevan of "continuing to fund the separatist regime" on Azerbaijani soil with some $360 million "that is officially in the books" while "claiming on the surface that they have no territorial claims against Azerbaijan."

"The prime minister of Armenia says so but if you judge by their deeds, you see that they do and they’re doing so to oppose any Azerbaijani attempts to start the proper reintegration of that region," he said.

He argued this objection was the underlying agenda stoking regional tensions and emphasized the need to "push the process forward and maintain a direct dialogue with the Armenian minority" in Karabakh.

Dawn of peace

Starting last year in October, there have been on-and-off talks hosted by the U.N. in Geneva, the European Council in Brussels, the United States in Washington and the Kremlin in Moscow to bring the sides closer to a final agreement to their decades-old dispute.

The negotiations collapsed for nearly five months until May this year after Yerevan cited the Lachin crisis and "left from the table," Mammadov recalled.

The sides convened again in Washington and Brussels again over the summer and again in Moscow but talks are currently in limbo, with no near date for another meeting.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in July claimed the sides could sign a peace treaty by the end of 2023, naming a normalization between Baku and Karabakh’s administrative center as the condition for it.

"If Yerevan accepts the very basic terms of international law — accepting the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, which would of course on a reciprocal basis where we also accept their territorial integrity — if they give up their irredentist claims on Karabakh, then of course one day we should be in a position to sign the peace agreement," Mammadov said.

The sides have been swapping draft agreements in recent weeks, trying to hammer out the details based on mutual feedback.

But, it’s hard to give it a timeline for a treaty, "given the back-and-forth tendencies on the Armenian side," Mammadov added.

Moscow mediation

In the meantime, Armenia, which has relied on Russia for military and economic support since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, has also accused Moscow – which is bogged down in its war against Ukraine – of failing to fulfill its peacekeeping role in Karabakh.

According to Mammadov, Moscow continues to play a "pivotal role" not only in peace talks but also in the dedicated efforts to open key transportation links like the Zangezur corridor, which would connect Azerbaijan to its exclave Nakhchivan then to Türkiye.

The route is also vital because it would be part of the so-called Middle Corridor, the transport corridor that comes from China and goes to Europe and all the way back for the transportation of all sorts of goods, Mammadov explained.

Moscow has its deputy prime minister co-chairing with his Azerbaijani and Armenian counterparts a commission working for the reopening of said links.

"So I would disagree that they failed that role," Mammadov said.