[1][9] Azerbaijan has maintained that the Sarsang Reservoir, due to poor maintenance, poses a threat to nearly 400,000 people living in the Karabakh lowlands which remain under Azerbaijani control.

[12] In 2014, Bosnian member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Milica Marković prepared a report, outlining environmental risks brought upon by the lack of regular maintenance of the dam, as well as a possibility of the frontier regions of Azerbaijan being deprived of water supply as a result of intensive farming, industrial activities, climate change and consumer habits, but also policy mistakes on the part of the Nagorno-Karabakh authorities.

The Assembly also recommended that the Armenian side stopped using water resources as tools of political influence or an instrument of pressure, benefiting only one of the parties to the conflict.

[14] In June 2016, the White House formally responded to a petition signed by over 330,000 people regarding the status of Nagorno-Karabakh and the dangers posed by the Sarsang Reservoir.

[15] In the response, the Obama administration expressed its support of the PACE Resolution 2085 and said it would welcome a meeting between technical experts to discuss water management and dam inspections at the reservoir.