Armenian community calls for Malta’s support in Azerbaijan crisis

The Armenian community in Malta organised a demonstration on Wednesday to raise awareness on the humanitarian crisis unfolding in an area of Azerbaijan known as Nagorno Karabakh, which has been blockaded by Azerbaijani military forces for half a year, preventing vital supplies from reaching ethnically Armenian civilians.

Members of the community organised in front of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, currently headed by Minister Ian Borg, urging the Maltese government to “use its diplomatic channels and international influence to address the urgent situation”.

Malta’s support for the cause would be especially influential as both a UN member state and a member of the UN Security Council, the local Armenian diaspora claimed in a press release issued on Friday.

The Maltese government has had close ties with the Azerbaijani government, being supplied liquefied natural gas from the country through the infamous SOCAR agreement with the Electrogas consortium.

Disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat similarly has close ties with the country, forming part of Azerbaijani dictator Ilham Aliyev’s Nizami Ganjavi International Centre (NGIC).

Muscat’s visit to the country last June included an NGIC video-watching session about Azerbaijani lands ‘liberated’ from occupation. Ostensibly, these lands would be those contested as part of the protracted Armenia-Azerbaijan war which has seen tens of thousands killed.

The local Armenian community also called upon the support of European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, asking for her support in raising awareness internationally and “mobilizing action to resolve the situation”.

The Azerbaijani government has blockaded the ethnic-Armenian enclave community in Azerbaijan for almost half a year, through a checkpoint on a mountainous road leading to it known as the Lachin corridor. In the press release, the community described how approximately 400 tonnes of vital humanitarian aid have been blocked in the last few days.

The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed in a statement on Tuesday that they have been unable to deliver vital humanitarian aid such as food and medicine to tens of thousands of Armenians in Karabakh, stating that “despite persistent efforts, we are unable to deliver aid” in a Twitter post.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been ongoing since 2020, consisting largely of border disputes between Armenia and Azerbaijan with near-constant violations of ceasefire agreements. The conflict has its origins in the late 80s in the years leading up to and following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.