BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 12. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSS) can only be handed the reins for keeping an eye on the Zangezur corridor, Trend reports via Armenian media, which aired Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's utterance during the conference "Crossroads of the World: Uniting Security and Democracy" in Yerevan today.
He quoted Point 9 of the trilateral statement signed between Azerbaijan, Russia, and Armenia on November 10, 2020, following the Second Karabakh War, highlighting the point's sentence: "The Border Guard Service of the Russian Federal Security Service shall be responsible for overseeing the transport connections.".
"What this means is explained in the decree of the President of Russia dated December 10, 2020. This means that representatives of Russia may be granted some monitoring function to see how Armenia fulfills its obligations," Pashinyan explained.
Additionally, he emphasized that "none of the statement points imply any restriction on Armenia's sovereign rights".
Previously, Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said that much of the work to open communications has "stalled" due to Armenia's stance on border control issues.
"Thus, Armenia has refused to allow the Russian Federal Security Service to manage transport communications through the Zangezur corridor and has effectively frozen its participation in the working group,” Zakharova noted.
Besides, as the representative of the President of Azerbaijan for Special Assignments Elchin Amirbayov said, the opening of the Zangezur corridor will serve as a confidence-building measure between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
“If we are talking about long-term, sustainable, and irreversible peace, the opening of the Zangezur transport link is one of those immediate results of peace that can be to the benefit not only of Azerbaijan but even more to the benefit of Armenia," Amirbayov explained.
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