The United Nations Security Council meeting provided Azerbaijan the opportunity to express its "legitimate concerns" about the Lachin corridor, Baku said on Wednesday.
"Despite the obvious attempts of Armenia to exploit this institution for the purpose of a manipulation campaign against Azerbaijan, the discussions at the U.N. Security Council provided yet another platform for Azerbaijan to raise its legitimate concerns," the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry declared in a statement, noting that said concerns included "deliberate, continuous and uncorrected violations" by Armenia of its commitments undertaken within the trilateral statement of Nov. 10, 2020.
The ministry also noted that the meeting "enabled Azerbaijan to inform the wider international community in this regard."
Baku and Yerevan traded barbs at the U.N. earlier on Wednesday over the Lachin corridor, the only artery connecting Armenia to the disputed region of Karabakh.
Karabakh is a source of seemingly endless conflict between the two South Caucasus nations who fought two wars over the territory in the 1990s and again in the autumn of 2020, until which the territory was illegally occupied by Armenia despite being internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
Six weeks of particularly intense clashes saw over 6,500 lives lost in September 2020 before a Russia-brokered truce ended the hostilities. A deal was struck right after, forcing Armenia to cede swatches of territory and Russia stationed a force of 2,000 peacekeepers in the region to oversee the fragile truce.
Several recent incidents have raised tensions between the two countries, the latest involving demonstrations near a Russian peacekeeping post on the Lachin road where Azerbaijani activists are protesting the illegal exploitation of mineral resources and its environmental impact on the surrounding area.
Armenia called for the meeting on Wednesday where its U.N. envoy Mher Margaryan accused Azerbaijan of imposing a "blockade on Armenian residents and resulting humanitarian catastrophe" with the protest on the said artery.
In response, Azerbaijan's U.N. Ambassador Yashar Aliyev rejected all claims by Armenia as false, accusing Yerevan of "misusing'' the corridor for the ''illicit trafficking'' of minerals and other resources as well as military activities.
The ministry’s statement reiterated that neither Azerbaijan nor the protesting activists in the area have blocked the corridor.
"The regime for the movement of citizens, goods and vehicles along the corridor remains unchanged, with the peacekeepers continuing to perform their duties to regulate the movement along the road. Video footage shared on social media shows the unimpeded passage of various types of vehicles, including ambulances and humanitarian convoys," the statement said.
The statement also noted that claims concerning alleged humanitarian consequences were falsified, adding that convoys belonging to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have passed through the corridor "without any impediment" over the past few days.
The ministry further said that the Azerbaijani representative underscored that NGO representatives started demonstrations in the Lachin corridor after being "forcefully obstructed by apparently pre-organized and orchestrated actions of a group of persons."
"The illegal exploitation of natural resources, which besides being inadmissible under the national legislation of Azerbaijan and relevant international instruments, is being carried out in total disregard of relevant environment-related technical standards, causing widespread and in many respects irreversible damage to the ecosystem," the statement said.
It rejected official statements that it said "interfered with its internal affairs" and also called for states to "honor their obligations under the U.N. Charter and international law and refrain from any statements that are directed against Azerbaijan's sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders."
"We reiterate our call on the international community to persuade Armenia to reciprocate the offer of Azerbaijan, cease its political and military provocations, abandon its aggressive rhetoric and actions, and engage in good faith in direct negotiations to find a peaceful diplomatic solution to all issues pertaining to inter-state relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia," it concluded.