Pashinyan: Azerbaijan raises issue of corridor, pointing to routes that are not in any document

Azerbaijan is regularly taking actions to discredit the opening of regional communications, Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at the government meeting today.

“Azerbaijan continues to raise the issue of a corridor, pointing to specific routes and directions. I have said many times before that Armenia has not discussed, does not discuss and will not discuss any issue of corridor logic,” he said, underscoring that all transport and economic communications in the region must be opened.

“Just as Armenia must have communication through Azerbaijan to Russia, Central Asia and Iran, similarly, Azerbaijan must have communication to Nakhichevan, Georgia and Iran through the territory of Armenia. In order to implement this plan, customs checkpoints must be set up at the relevant border checkpoints,” Pashinyan said, citing border checkpoints in the CIS as an example.

He also said that the Azerbaijani troops not only continue to remain illegally in the territory of the Republic of Armenia, but also carry out provocative actions, trying to discredit the CSTO.

“Being a CSTO member, whose presidency Armenia will assume in September, Armenia understands its responsibility not to pose security threats to the CSTO. I officially rule out any provocative action by the Armenian Armed Forces,” Pashinyan said. He added that one of the possible solutions is could be deployment of a CSTO monitoring mission along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. He added that in case of impossibility to do so, may be other internationally acceptable formats for Armenia, including the Minsk Group format.