Via Email: secretary@state.gov December 19, 2022
Glendale, CA Grant Petrosyan Secretary
New York, NY Lucy Varpetian Chair Ex Officio Los Angeles, CA
Members at Large
Hon. Amy Ashvanian Los Angeles, CA
Hrag Alex Bastian
Los Angeles, CA Giselle Davidian Toronto, Ontario Harry H. Dikranian Montreal, Quebec Levon Golendukhin New York, NY
Armen K. Hovannisian Los Angeles, CA Souren Israelyan
New York, NY Mariam Kuregyan Encino, CA
Scott A. Ohnegian Morristown, NJ Tigran Palyan
Los Angeles, CA Ovsanna Takvoryan Encino, CA
NALSA Representative
Diana Gazaryan Los Angeles, CA
Advisory Board
Hon. Larry A. Burns
San Diego, CA
Hon. Dickran Tevrizian (Ret.) Los Angeles, CA
URGENT Re: Humanitarian Crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh
The Honorable Antony J. Blinken United States Secretary of State 2201 C St NW
Washington, DC 20520
Dear Secretary Blinken:
We write on behalf of the 30,000 children who are trying to survive in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh).1 Azerbaijan has trapped them under its heavy heel and these most vulnerable members of the human race remain under siege. As you have undoubtedly heard, they have been blockaded since December 12, 2022, deprived of the only road that links them to food, supplies, and other necessities of life, including medicine.
The Lachin Corridor,2 the only land route connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to the Republic of Armenia, was blocked by provocateurs masquerading as Azerbaijani environmentalists but chanting their true intentions to beleaguered Armenians: “Karabagh is Azerbaijani.” Many of these so-called “environmentalists” have been exposed to be agents of the repressive Azerbaijani regime.3 As of today, that crucial road remains blocked. While Azerbaijan also cut off the gas supply to Nagorno-Karabakh for several days in freezing temperatures, for the time being, it has been restored.
This blockade is being wielded as a political lever by the Aliyev regime and it has already created a humanitarian crisis that endangers the health and wellbeing of the most vulnerable in society (notably the children and elderly). This blockade is also imposed with the intent to paralyze the functioning of administrative and civil infrastructures (schools, hospitals, hospices) in Nagorno-Karabakh and to terrorize the Armenians living there. It must be stopped.
All of the medicine in Nagorno-Karabakh must travel through the closed road. Dire shortages have already been registered, and hospitals have suspended their planned procedures in order to preserve scarce supplies for new emergency patients. In addition, 270 children are separated from their parents, who were temporarily outside of Nagorno- Karabakh when the road was blocked and now cannot return.
Nagorno-Karabakh is an enclave that was part of the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic but
populated by ethnic Armenians. Because of discrimination by Soviet Azerbaijani authorities, it exercised
its right under Soviet law to secede from Soviet Azerbaijan in 1991. While its sovereign status has been
disputed by Azerbaijan, we do not address that issue here to focus on the current urgent humanitarian
crisis. 2
Based on a 10 November 2020 ceasefire statement between the Republic of Armenia, Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation, Nagorno-Karabakh was left to be connected to the outside world by a sole road, which was to be protected from Azerbaijan by a peacekeeping contingent of the Russian Federation. Under that statement, there was to be “road safety along the Lachin corridor of citizens, vehicles and
goods in both directions.”
3
Aliyev’s Puppet Eco-Activists: Who Blocked the Lachin Corridor Leading to Artsakh? – FIP.AM