His remarks on Saturday came as dozens of residents of border communities in Tavush potentially affected by the announced delimitation and demarcation process went out to protest the deal, blocking an interstate road passing through the area.
“I wouldn’t want us to overestimate what happened, but I also wouldn’t want us to underestimate it, because it is very important to state that, in fact, for the first time, Armenia and Azerbaijan have resolved an issue around a [negotiating] table,” Pashinian said.
Following the eighth round of talks held between Armenian Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian and his Azerbaijani counterpart Shahin Mustafayev on April 19 the parties announced a preliminary agreement that the initial stage of the delimitation process will involve sections between four villages in the territory of Armenia’s northeastern Tavush province and four abandoned villages that used to be part of Azerbaijan’s northwestern Qazax district during the Soviet times.
Thus, Armenia agreed to return the four abandoned border villages that it has controlled since the early 1990s to Azerbaijan as the initial step in defining the frontier between the two South Caucasus nations.
The delimitation on the mentioned sections is to be completed by the middle of May, the parties agreed.
Residents of border villages in Tavush are particularly concerned that the demarcation of the border with Azerbaijan in accordance with the Soviet-era configuration will deprive them of access to their farmlands and complicate their communication with the rest of the country due to the fact that some parts of the road in the area will fall under Azerbaijani control.
They have also voiced concerns that Armenia’s withdrawal from its current military positions will make the local civilians far more vulnerable to Azerbaijani armed attacks.
Residents of the village of Kirants in Armenia’s Tavush province block the road passing through their community. April 20, 2024
Pashinian has pledged his government’s efforts to address all the issues that residents of borderline areas may potentially face as a result of the border arrangement.
Talking to reporters in Stepanavan today, the Armenian prime minister also effectively confirmed that Russian border guards who were deployed in Tavush following the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war over Nagorno-Karabakh will be withdrawn from the area after the delimitation and demarcation of the border with Azerbaijan at that section is completed.
“What is happening now is, of course, a significant change in the situation and this change should have its impact in all aspects. It means that we don’t have a front line here, but will have a border, and the border is a sign of peace. And this means that the border guards of Armenia and Azerbaijan will be able to independently protect the border by interacting with each other,” Pashinian stressed.
Pashinian said that the heads of the border guard services of Armenia and Azerbaijan are already in contact with each other to agree on the implementation of the service.
Pashinian wouldn’t be drawn into a discussion regarding specific measures his government plans to take in view of widespread security concerns among Tavush residents, but stressed that their expectation was one of peace. “This is also a very important cornerstone for the peace process,” he said.
During his earlier meetings with residents of border villagers in Tavush Pashinian said that the delimitation and demarcation of the border with Azerbaijan based on the Alma Ata declaration of 1991 would mean that Armenia could become a “truly independent state.”
Armenian opposition groups have strongly criticized Pashinian for agreeing to discuss the transfer of four formerly Azeri villages to Baku without immediately getting Azerbaijan to withdraw from parts of sovereign Armenian territory that its military captured during a series of border incursions in 2021-2022.
Different opposition politicians and activists have traveled to border areas in Tavush in recent weeks to support local protests against what they view as unilateral concessions by the Pashinian government. The Armenian opposition claims that land concessions to Azerbaijan will only further jeopardize Armenia’s security.
Meanwhile, the United States and the European Union have welcomed the start of the border delimitation process between Armenia and Azerbaijan based on the 1991 Alma Ata Declaration by which former Soviet republics recognized each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty after the demise of the USSR.
“This is an important step towards concluding a durable and dignified peace agreement,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday.
On Friday, Toivo Klaar, the EU’s Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the Crisis in Georgia, wrote on X: “The EU fully supports the process of negotiations and the aim of a comprehensive and lasting settlement.”
Meanwhile, in Azerbaijan the deal was touted as another victory scored by President Ilham Aliyev and his government.
“Armenia has agreed to return four villages [that have been] under occupation since the early 1990s,” Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Aykhan Hajizada wrote on social media, describing it as a “long-awaited historic event.”