Answering questions of journalists during an online press conference on Armenia’s Public Television, which was also streamed live on Facebook, on Tuesday, Pashinian again ruled out what he called ‘corridor logic’ in unblocking regional transport links, which is part of a Russia-brokered ceasefire deal that stopped a 44-day war with Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh last November.
One of the clauses of the deal, in particular, commits Armenia and Azerbaijan to reopening all transport links in the region, including transport connections between the western regions of Azerbaijan and its Nakhichevan exclave via Armenian territory.
Baku and Yerevan appear to interpret this point differently. While Armenia insists that it should continue to maintain sovereignty over all roads and railway links that are to be opened or constructed in its territory, Azerbaijan appears to be demanding an extraterritorial corridor.
In his public statements Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly demanded such a corridor, threatening to get it by force if Armenia refuses to provide it.
At the same time, Aliyev has also said on a number of occasions that Azerbaijan has no territorial claims towards Armenia and seeks a peace deal and mutual recognition of borders between the two neighbors.
Pashinian said on Tuesday that with its aggressive policies Azerbaijan not only invades Armenian sovereign territory, but also assails Armenia’s “statehood, sovereignty, independence and democracy.” He pledged that Yerevan will continue to raise this issue in the international arena.
“Azerbaijan clearly demonstrates that it has territorial claims against Armenia. What does the ‘Zangezur corridor’ or ‘Western Zangezur’ expressions mean?” he said. “We have stated before, and now we also declare that we have not discussed the issue in corridor logic, we are not discussing it and will not be discussing it, which does not mean that we are abandoning the agenda of opening regional links.”
Pashinian said that after having been in a blockade for three decades Armenia, in fact, may need regional unblocking more than Azerbaijan. He claimed that Azerbaijan’s insistence on corridor logic may be aimed at thwarting Armenia’s efforts to achieve this unblocking.
It was announced in recent days that Pashinian and Aliyev are going to have at least two meetings in the coming weeks.
Over the weekend the two leaders confirmed that they agreed to meet on the sidelines of the European Union’s Eastern Partnership summit in Brussels on December 15 following an offer by Charles Michel, the president of the European Council. And earlier today it was reported that Pashinian and Aliyev will also hold a trilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi on November 26.
Pashinian said today that both meetings are the result of discussions that have taken weeks or months. At the same time, he warned against expectations of “quick results” from the upcoming meetings.
“I don’t think it is right to have big expectations from every specific meeting – be they negative or positive. One should not expect any quick results. There is tension in our region, and in order to overcome this tension, we must negotiate,” Pashinian said.
According to him, humanitarian issues, including that of prisoners of war, are likely to be on the agenda of the Brussels meeting.
“Our perception, which also proceeds from the general situation, is that contacts between representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan should be more frequent so that we can settle different situations, find solutions and try to avoid crises,” Pashinian said.
In this context the Armenian leader stressed the importance of the establishment of a direct communication line between Yerevan and Baku at the level of defense ministers, which was announced after the European Council president’s phone calls with Pashinian and Aliyev last week.
The announcements of the planned meetings between Pashinian and Aliyev were made amid lingering border tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan that escalated into clashes on November 16.
The fighting in which at least seven Azerbaijani and six Armenian soldiers were killed was stopped through Russia’s mediation.
The worst Armenian-Azerbaijani fighting since last year’s ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh renewed international calls for the delimitation and demarcation of the Soviet-era border between the two South Caucasus countries.
A number of opposition groups in Yerevan have been holding street protests these days, voicing concerns about possible risks that planned border demarcation talks may involve.
Protesters, in particular, have claimed that by recognizing the Soviet-era borders with Azerbaijan Armenia will effectively recognize that Nagorno-Karabakh is Azerbaijani territory, which will harm the aspirations of the region’s ethnic Armenians for self-determination.
In this connection Pashinian said today that Armenia and Azerbaijan already recognized each other’s territorial integrity in 1991 when they participated in the process of establishing the Commonwealth of Independence States, a loose organization of post-Soviet states formed in the wake of the USSR’s breakup. This, however, did not lead to the disappearance of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, he said.
According to Pashinian, the delimitation and demarcation of borders, Nagorno-Karabakh and regional unblocking are separate issues that need different methods of discussing.
“Is the issue of Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh – ed.] that of a territory? As we understand it, it is not the issue of territory. The issue of Artsakh is the issue of rights and has nothing to do with territory,” Pashinian said.
As for the questions asked about what the potential document on the delimitation and demarcation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border will be, Pashinian said that “such a document will be about Armenia and Azerbaijan forming a commission that will deal with border delimitation and demarcation work.”
“This document will not say that the border passes here or there,” he explained.