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Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Thursday renewed his call for the deployment of an international fact-finding mission to the Lachin Corridor and Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).

His comments came after Azerbaijan on Sunday set up a checkpoint at the Hakari Bridge in the Lachin Corridor in violation of the November 2020 ceasefire agreement.

"Azerbaijan continuously escalates the situation in the region, this time illegally installing a checkpoint in the Lachin Corridor connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. And if until now the Lachin Corridor was closed under the pretext of a false environmental demonstration, now it is already officially closed by Azerbaijan. This is a provocative step aimed not only at increasing tension in the region, but also at deepening the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh," Pashinyan told a cabinet meeting.

He applauded the international community’s response to the establishment of the Azerbaijani checkpoint in the Lachin Corridor.

"But it is also important to record the real and deep purpose of this and a number of preceding actions. That goal is to carry out ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, and this should be the subject of attention of all of us, the international community," the premier said.

"The next issue, which is exacerbated by the installation of a checkpoint in the Lachin Corridor, is the following: to what extent does Azerbaijan feel obliged to fulfill its international obligations? The establishment of a checkpoint in the Lachin Corridor is a flagrant violation of point 6 of the trilateral declaration of November 9, 2020.

"I had occasion to say that since November 9, 2020, Azerbaijan has violated essentially all points of the trilateral declaration. However, the acknowledgment of all this should lead to concrete conclusions, and I would also like to present our ideas regarding the general settlement of the situation.

"The peacekeeping force of the Russian Federation must keep the Lachin Corridor under control and thus ensure the normal functioning of the corridor. In other words, no one but the Russian Federation should exercise control over the Lachin Corridor. Azerbaijan should not obstruct free traffic through the corridor either. This is exactly what the trilateral declaration of November 9, 2020, envisages.

"The rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh should become the subject of negotiations between Stepanakert and Baku within the framework of the international format," he noted.

Pashinyan stressed the need for concrete and sincere efforts to avoid further escalation of the situation and to reach a comprehensive settlement.

"The Republic of Armenia will continue making all possible efforts in this direction. But parallel to these efforts, a wider international presence in Nagorno-Karabakh and the Lachin Corridor becomes more and more necessary every day. Azerbaijan's efforts to turn Nagorno-Karabakh into a new scaffold for Armenians must be stopped, and the only reliable way to do this is the presence of representatives with a broad international mandate in Nagorno-Karabakh. As a first step, it is necessary to send an urgent international fact-finding mission to the Lachin Corridor and Nagorno-Karabakh," the PM stated.