Armenian police on August 8 detained more than a dozen protesters outside a government building in Yerevan after they demanded the authorities take steps to unblock the Lachin Corridor, the only road linking the Armenian-populated Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia.
The Interior Ministry said 14 people were detained for failing to comply with police orders but said they would be released soon.
The protesters arrived at a government building in the morning and demanded authorities open the corridor, saying that if the government didn't do it, they wanted to be armed so that they could open it themselves.
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Armenian Police Detain Protesters Demanding End Of Lachin Corridor Blockade
Yerevan and international aid groups have warned that a dire humanitarian situation has been unfolding in Nagorno-Karabakh since convoys of food and medicine have been blocked from reaching the region.
The protesters, who said they were members of a military unit, said they intended to travel by bus to Kornidzor, a village on the border with Azerbaijan where trucks containing aid have been standing.
SEE ALSO: With Tightening Of Blockade, Azerbaijan Presents Karabakh Armenians With A Choice: Surrender Or StarveThe convoy of 19 Armenian trucks carrying emergency food aid to Nagorno-Karabakh has been blocked for almost two weeks at an Azerbaijan checkpoint.
Tensions escalated after Azerbaijan last month suspended traffic through the checkpoint pending an investigation after it said "various types of contraband" had been discovered in the Red Cross vehicles coming from Armenia.
Azerbaijan says it can only allow supplies to reach Nagorno-Karabakh over a road from Agdam, a town controlled by Azerbaijan in the east of the region.
Ethnic Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh reject this offer, saying Azerbaijan's blockade is a violation of the Moscow-brokered 2020 cease-fire agreement that placed the 5-kilometer-wide strip of land under the control of Russian peacekeepers.
A delegation led by staff members of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier on August 8 visited the site in Armenia's southern Syunik Province where the 19-truck convoy has been stranded.
Syunik Governor Robert Ghukasian accompanied visiting U.S. officials Sarah Arkin and Damian Murphy.
The United States and the European Union have urged Azerbaijan to allow humanitarian supplies to reach Nagorno-Karabakh over the Lachin Corridor.
A group of United Nations experts on August 7 voiced alarm over the ongoing blockade.
"The blockade of the Lachin Corridor is a humanitarian emergency that has created severe shortages of essential food staples including sunflower oil, fish, chicken, dairy products, cereal, sugar and baby formula," said a statement published on the website of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller on August 7 reiterated that a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan was achievable "despite any comments from other countries who are not a party to this matter."
Miller was commenting on a warning from Russia to both sides against rushing into the signing of a peace agreement.
"I don’t want to speak with respect to Russia when it comes to Armenia and Azerbaijan," Miller said. "I want to speak with respect to those two countries...[that] are direct parties in this dispute."
He said a U.S. special envoy traveled to the region last week to engage directly with Armenia and Azerbaijan.