Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian rejected through a spokeswoman Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s fresh demands for the transit of people and cargo to be exempt from Armenian border controls.
Pashinian implied last week that he and Aliyev made serious progress on the thorny issue during their talks held in Abu Dhabi on July 10. In that regard, he said he is ready to accept a U.S. proposal to let an American company administer rail and road traffic through the would-be corridor.
“Azerbaijani cargo and Azerbaijani citizens should not see the faces of Armenian border guards or anyone else,” Aliyev said at the weekend. “There should be no physical contact, there should be guaranteed security measures so that our people and cargo can pass freely.”
He said he reiterated this demand at Abu Dhabi and warned Yerevan against continuing to oppose the so-called “Zangezur corridor” sought by him.
“If they continue to block this process in the future, they will find themselves in not only transport isolation but also, to some extent, political isolation,” Aliyev told a group of foreign journalists during an event in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Responding to Aliyev, Pashinian’s press secretary, Nazeli Baghdasarian, said: “The Azerbaijani president's statement that Azerbaijani citizens should not encounter the Armenian border service is beyond the logic of the discussions that took place. It is, in essence, a hidden territorial claim against the Republic of Armenia, which cannot be acceptable and contradicts the spirit and letter of the negotiations and understandings that have happened so far.”
“As Prime Minister Pashinian noted at his press conference on July 16, all goods, including transit cargo, and citizens entering the territory of Armenia must undergo mandatory customs and border control in accordance with internationally accepted standards,” she told the Armenpress news agency. “Armenia cannot fail to possess information about who entered its territory and whether they left after entering or not.”
Citing Pashinian, Baghdasarian said that Azerbaijani travelers could only “sometimes” avoid face-to-face contact with Armenian border and customs officers with the help of modern technology. Armenia would also be in charge of security along the corridor and levy transit fees, she said.
Armenian opposition leaders seized upon Pashinian’s July 16 comments to claim that he has agreed to open an extraterritorial corridor to Nakhichevan demanded by Baku. They say that Aliyev’s latest statement only proved that.
The Azerbaijani leader also made clear that he continues to make the signing of an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty finalized in March conditional on a change of Armenia’s constitution. Pashinian’s spokeswoman rejected this precondition.
Both Aliyev and Pashinian confirmed reports that they discussed the possibility of “initialing” the draft treaty.
“There are currently active discussions about under what conditions this could happen,” said Baghdasarian.
Pashinian’s domestic critics claim that he is desperate to clinch even a pre-signed document in order to mislead Armenians and increase his chances of winning the next general elections due in June 2026.