Aliyev's threatening rhetoric makes clear his government will ignore exhortations to sit down for talks with representatives of the entity he considers anathema to Azerbaijan.
The region's already meager electricity generation capacity is in jeopardy, and an "environmental disaster" could be at hand, the local de facto authorities say.
Armenia has long been on a trajectory of recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, but the prime minister's explicit statement still triggered shock and outrage.
Yerevan and Baku have fundamental disagreements about how the rights and security of Karabakh’s Armenian population should be guaranteed. Observers are pessimistic that they can be bridged.
Baku has presented the border crossing as a demonstration of how Karabakh Armenians can live peacefully under Azerbaijani rule. But no one is using it.
Ever since the start to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, anything with the slightest whiff of separatism in Kazakhstan has elicited a harsh crackdown. Except this time.
Azerbaijan is seeking to equate the rights of the Azerbaijanis who were displaced from Armenia to those of Karabakh Armenians. Yerevan isn't having it.
Armenians had been using the road to bypass a blockade on the main road, the Lachin Corridor. The move drew a rare rebuke from the Russian peacekeepers.
The U.S. and Russia have both made high-level contact with Armenian and Azerbaijani officials as the rhetoric from Baku is getting increasingly bellicose.