Azerbaijan disrupts internet in Nagorno-Karabakh 5 minutes prior to online press briefing featuring ex-ICC prosecutor

STEPANAKERT, AUGUST 18, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijan has cut off the internet fiber-optic cable near its illegal checkpoint in Lachin Corridor, disrupting Nagorno-Karabakh’s (Artsakh) internet access, a senior Nagorno-Karabakh official said Friday.

Artak Beglaryan, the advisor to the State Minister of Nagorno-Karabakh, said in a statement that Azerbaijan cut off the cable at 17:55 on August 17.

Nagorno-Karabakh specialists tried to approach the area together with Russian peacekeepers to restore the cable but were not allowed to proceed by Azeri authorities.

Beglaryan said negotiations between the peacekeepers and the Azerbaijani side continue in order to allow specialists to access the site and repair the cable.

“I don’t find it to be a coincidence that this new crime took place after the UN Security Council meeting and literally five minutes before the start of a press conference on the genocide in Artsakh. As a result of this provocation, the Artsakh-based speakers of the press conference, the Human Rights Defender Gegham Stepanyan and displaced citizen Alvina Nersisyan, were able to join the two other speakers, Artsakh Foreign Minister Sergey Ghazaryan and former ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, 45 minutes late using unstable and alternative communication. Despite the Azerbaijani efforts, the press conference took place, with 130 participants from 27 countries. Now, very limited volume of internet is accessible in Artsakh through unstable radio communication, which is also continuously under Azerbaijani jamming,” Beglaryan added.