Vahan Hunanyan, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia, answered the questions of the “Armenpress” news agency regarding the statements of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Jeyhun Bayramov.
– The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, speaking about the delimitation process between Armenia and Azerbaijan, reiterated that the Armenian side puts forward preconditions, stressing that Armenia has no legal, political or moral right to set any conditions on the issue of delimitation of borders. How would you comment on this statement?
The Prime Minister of Armenia, the President of Russia and the President of Azerbaijan signed a statement in Sochi on November 26, 2021, which is public and available on the Internet. The statement clearly states that the leaders of the three countries agreed to take steps to increase the level of stability and security on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and to lead the process towards the formation of a bilateral commission on delimitation and demarcation.
The statement signed by the leaders of the three countries shows that the activities of the demarcation and delimitation commission should be preceded by steps to increase the level of security on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. This is also logical because it’s difficult to imagine carrying out delimitation work on the border, where violations of the ceasefire regime occur every day. Armenia, being really interested in the full implementation of the agreements, formulated its ideas about their implementation.
The Azerbaijani side didn’t give any meaningful responses, but rejected them without offering options instead. If you call it a “condition”, a “precondition”, then voicing estimates for them has no logical relation to the above process.
– The Azerbaijani Foreign Minister also noted that Armenia has failed the activities of the trilateral working group. What would you say about this?
If we are referring to the trilateral working group on the opening of regional communications, by a curious coincidence, at a government session held today, Prime Minister Pashinyan stated that Armenia is at the stage of practical steps to restore the Yeraskh-Julfa-Ordubad-Meghri-Horadiz railway and Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan held discussions on this topic with his Russian counterpart, Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk, and the CEO of Russian Railways Oleg Belozyorov on February 2 in Yerevan.
Prime Minister Pashinyan, assessing the situation, said that recording of the first results of the work of the trilateral working group looks very close. In this context, the statements of the Azerbaijani Foreign Minister are at least strange and we hope it doesn’t mean rejection of the agreements reached in Brussels.
I would like to note that the Republic of Armenia confirms its commitment to the agreements reached, as the RA Prime Minister has publicly stated several times. It should also be noted that Armenia has also made proposals to the Azerbaijani side on the opening of highways. There has been no response from the Azerbaijani side to these proposals so far. Armenia is ready to start implementing these proposals as soon as possible.
