YEREVAN, DECEMBER 20, ARMENPRESS. The blocking of the Lachin Corridor by Azerbaijan is a carefully planned attempt of ethnic cleansing and even genocide, legislator Vladimir Vardanyan said.

Vardanyan, the Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on State-Legal Affairs, said that if international law hasn’t died then at least it is experiencing clinical death.

“I fear that what is happening today regarding those so-called environmentalists, the pseudo-environmentalists, it nothing but a a carefully planned attempted policy of ethnic cleansing,” Vardanyan said in parliament.

Vardanyan quoted a part from the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide which defines genocide as “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”. “We are facing this,” he added.

The legislator expressed confidence that the Armenian people can achieve success through unity.

Azerbaijan is keeping the Lachin Corridor blocked since December 12. The Lachin Corridor is the only connection of (Artsakh) Nagorno Karabakh with Armenia and the rest of the world.