Baku urges Armenia to honor int’l commitments for opening Zangazur corridor
By Vugar Khalilov
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry has urged Armenia to honor its international commitments for the opening of the Zangazur corridor, Azernews reports.
“Armenia should avoid fake pretexts to evade from its commitments under the November 10, 2020, Trilateral Statement to link auto/railroads through the Zangazur corridor. To suggest 3 unrealistic options of checkpoints for connectivity ignoring 20 months-long discussions is not a good policy,” the ministry tweeted in response to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s statement.
“A draft decision of the Armenian government on the opening 3 checkpoints on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border to provide a connection between eastern Azerbaijan & Nakhchivan is being formally circulated for several months. The government of Armenia is waiting for a positive reaction from Azerbaijan,” Pashinyan tweeted on October 17.
The trilateral ceasefire deal signed by the Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian leaders on November 10, 2020, ended the three-decade conflict over Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region, which along with the seven adjacent districts came under the occupation of Armenian armed forces in the war in the early 1990s.
On January 11, 2021, the Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian leaders signed the second statement since the end of the 44-day war. The newly-signed statement was set to implement clause 9 of the November 2020 statement related to the unblocking of all economic and transport communications in the region.
On November 26, 2021, the three leaders signed a statement and agreed on a number of issues, including the demarcation and delimitation of the Azerbaijani-Armenian border. On May 23, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed decrees on the creation of border delimitation and security commissions.
So far, two meetings of the border delimitation commissions led by Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev and his Armenian opposite side Mher Grigoryan was held prior to the border clashes that erupted as a result of the Armenian provocation on September 12-14.
Following the October 6 meeting in Prague between Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders under the auspices of EU Council President Charles Michel and French President Emmanuel Macron, all parties reaffirmed their commitment to the peace negotiations while recognizing each other's territorial integrity.
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