About two weeks ago, the Hraparak daily reported two incidents involving Armenian and Azerbaijani border guards near the Armenian village of Kirants. According to the report, Azerbaijan claimed that a portion of the new road encroached on its territory.
In response to an inquiry by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, the National Security Service (NSS) of Armenia refuted these allegations, giving assurances that “the road under construction passes entirely through the territory of Armenia.”
The bridge leading to Kirants, which was part of the interstate road connecting Armenia and Georgia, was handed over to the Azerbaijani side as part of the controversial border demarcation completed in May. The Armenian side then began constructing a new alternative road, which is now operational.
Despite the NSS’s denial, a Kirants resident, who wished to remain anonymous, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that there was indeed an altercation between Armenian and Azerbaijani border guards, with the latter insisting that the new road was being built in Azerbaijani territory.
The border demarcation, which involved several sections of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in the north, resulted in Armenia ceding control of four villages that were previously part of Soviet Azerbaijan, as well as certain territories of Armenian villages, according to 1970s maps used in the process. The move, which has been criticized by the opposition as a unilateral concession, sparked large-scale protests in Yerevan.
The government of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has dismissed the criticism, arguing that the alternative to the border demarcation would be another war, for which Azerbaijan would have a legitimate pretext.
Pashinian, who recently visited several border villages in the northeastern Tavush province, has argued that local Armenian communities are now better protected from a legal standpoint than before the demarcation.
The opposition, on the contrary, has claimed that Armenia would be more exposed to danger in the Tavush section in the event of another war with Azerbaijan given that Armenian armed forces had to withdraw from some strategically important ground.
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