As a result of the Washington agreements, after more than 30 years of blockade, Armenia is being unblocked — a result that, I believe, would have seemed unimaginable in the not-so-distant past. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated this in a message addressed to the people.
“Various questions are being raised about how and under what arrangements communication routes between Armenia and Azerbaijan will be opened — in other words, what the opening of roads will look like, which is essentially an unfamiliar phenomenon for us.
The text of the Washington Declaration fully answers this question: territorial integrity, sovereignty, jurisdiction, and the inviolability of borders —these are the principles within which the opening of roads between Armenia and Azerbaijan must take place.
This means that in the sections of restoring or constructing communication routes, the state border between Armenia and Azerbaijan must first be clarified, demarcated, and delimited. And a border has its mandatory attributes — border guards, customs checkpoints, and so on.
However, as early as during the presentation of the ‘Crossroads of Peace’ project and until now, we have expressed readiness to simplify border crossing procedures, and this issue is to become the subject of detailed discussion in the near future.
Does this open the door to new concerns for us? Definitely not, because Article 3 of the Washington Declaration also records the principle of reciprocity, which guarantees that we will find balanced and mutually acceptable solutions with Azerbaijan.
The memorandum also records the U.S. interest in the Armenian government's Crossroads of Peace initiative and its desire to invest in it within the framework of Armenia’s territorial integrity, sovereignty, and border inviolability.
From the ‘Crossroads of Peace’ initiative and the memorandum derives the ‘Trump Path for International Peace and Prosperity’ communication program, which promises major investments, financial benefits, economic development, and an elevated regional role for Armenia.
As a result of this program’s implementation, international railways, highways, pipelines, and power transmission lines will pass through Armenia’s territory. This program becomes one of the important components of the ‘Crossroads of Peace’ initiative.
Armenia, through all this, becomes a Crossroads of Peace.
I am pleased that the concerns of several regional partners regarding this initiative have now been alleviated. Nevertheless, we will continue to work with them in an atmosphere of partnership and transparency,” the Prime Minister concluded.
