Azerbaijan accused, on Saturday July 15, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh of seeking to disrupt air links in Azerbaijani space, at a time when negotiations between Baku and Yerevan are expected in Brussels. The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense claims that the Armenians produce “radio interference directed at the GPS navigation systems of local and foreign airlines” flying in Azerbaijan.
“These incidents pose a serious threat to aviation safety,” the ministry said in a statement. According to this source, on July 13, an Azerbaijan Airlines plane flying to the locality of Fizuli in Nagorno-Karabakh suffered a GPS system failure due to alleged interference. Armenian authorities have dismissed these accusations, calling them “a complete lie”.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian are due to meet in Brussels on Saturday for new negotiations. Region mainly populated by Armenians, Nagorno-Karabakh is at the heart of a territorial conflict between Baku and Yerevan which led to two wars.
The last, in 2020, saw the defeat of Armenian forces and significant territorial gains for Azerbaijan. Since then, connections between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia have only been possible through one main road, the Lachin Corridor.
This was closed on Tuesday by Azerbaijan, on the grounds of acts of “smuggling” carried out by the Armenian branch of the Red Cross, which was nevertheless able to resume medical evacuations from Nagorno-Karabakh on Friday. Yerevan has feared for several months a serious humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh, due to increasingly difficult access conditions.
