YEREVAN — Armenia has demanded that the United Nations take steps “to restore its neutral position in the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict” as it protested the participation of UN officials in an Azerbaijani event in a key Karabakh town this week.

Lila Pieters Yahia, the acting UN resident coordinator in Armenia, was summoned by Armenia’s Foreign Ministry on March 19 and told that the government “strongly condemns the involvement of the UN Office in Azerbaijan in the event organized in Shushi on March 18.”

Azerbaijan organized an event in the Baku-controlled town — known as Susa in Azeri and Shushi in Armenian — dedicated to the 30th anniversary of Azerbaijan’s membership in the UN.

Baku said the UN resident coordinator in Azerbaijan and other representatives of the organization participated in the event, during which a UN flag was raised in the town.

UN officials did not immediately comment on the protest.

The town is a key site in Nagorno-Karabakh contested by Armenians and Azerbaijanis. Ethnic Armenians took control of the town in 1992 as they fought a separatist war against Azerbaijan following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Azerbaijani forces regained control of the town during the second Karabakh war in 2020. The capture of the strategic area by Azerbaijan marked a turning point in the hostilities and was followed by a Moscow-brokered cease-fire that brought Russian peacekeepers to the region.

Nagorno-Karabakh’s de facto authorities consider the town and other areas of the former Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region proper currently controlled by Azerbaijan to be occupied territories.

Azerbaijani authorities consider the town to be part of the country.

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