BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 15. To date, there is no feasibility study for the railway to be built in the Mehri section of the Zangazur corridor, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said addressing the meeting dedicated to the results of six months of this year, Trend reports.
"The second negative point is that in the 10 November Declaration is that contact was supposed to be established between the main part of Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, and Armenia obediently agreed to this and assumed this obligation. But so far we have not been given this opportunity. The Lachin road is open, and we made a commitment in the Declaration of 10 November that the Lachin road would work and that Azerbaijan guarantees the safety of that road. We have taken this upon ourselves as a commitment and we are following it. But we do not have the opportunity to go to Nakhchivan from the main part of Azerbaijan. Not only do we not have the opportunity to do that, we do not even see any work being done in this direction in the territory of Armenia.
To date, there is no feasibility study for the railway to be built in the Mehri section of the Zangazur corridor. No project can be implemented without a feasibility study, and it takes several months to prepare a feasibility study for the construction of a railway. So this work has not been started yet. The route of the highway has not been given to us. A year and eight months have passed. I have raised this issue many times, including three times during meetings with the Prime Minister of Armenia and President of the Council of Europe. To this day, we have not been given the route. The distance there is just 40 kilometers away. There cannot be multiple routes. It is also clear that there are not so many road routes that can be used in all seasons and 24 hours a day. So there is a reason why this route has not been given to us. Work in this direction has not been carried out, the feasibility study has not been prepared – Armenia does not want to fulfill this obligation, but it does not admit that. This is why we are demanding our own rights. If we are implementing all the provisions of the 10 November Declaration, we demand the same approach from Armenia. A year and eight months have passed since the end of the war, so everyone should take this into account," the head of state said.