ARMENIA pleaded with the United Nations’ highest court on Monday to order Azerbaijan to break up a road blockade that is isolating the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, calling the action “ethnic cleansing.”

The hearing at the International Court of Justice comes amid rising tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia just over two years after they ended a war that killed about 6,800 soldiers and displaced around 90,000 civilians. 

Late last year, Azerbaijanis began blocking a winding road known as the Lachin Corridor that forms the only land connection between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. 

The blockade threatens food supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh’s 120,000 people.

Armenia argues that Azerbaijan has repeatedly halted supplies of gas to the region, a claim Azerbaijan also rejected.

Armenia’s main legal representative to the court Yeghishe Kirakosyan told judges: “Ethnic Armenians may not enter Nagorno-Karabakh but they may leave,” he said.

“Judges of the court, such blatant acts of ethnic cleansing have no place in [the] modern era.”

Azerbaijan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Elnur Mammadov said that his country “rejects Armenia’s baseless accusations in the strongest terms” and accused Armenia of trying “to create political leverage in the ongoing peace negotiations between the two states.”

The court will likely issue a legally binding ruling within weeks.