On the margins of the Warsaw Security Forum, Minister Mirzoyan gave an interview to the Polish TPV World.
Journalist: Hello and welcome to TVP World. I'm Diana Skaya, and we're here at the Warsaw Security Forum and my guest here today is Armenia's Foreign Minister, Mr. Ararat Mirzoyan. Thank you so much, Mr. Minister, for being with us here today.
Ararat Mirzoyan: Thank you for the invitation.
Journalist: So Armenia and Azerbaijan signed the Declaration in Washington in August. What has advanced since then?
Ararat Mirzoyan: Indeed, on the 8th of August, the Prime Minister of Armenia and President of Azerbaijan signed the Declaration, and also the Declaration was signed by President Trump of the United States as a witness, and in this Declaration, the leaders agreed upon several very important things. Well, they witnessed, first of all, the initialing of the Peace Agreement by the foreign ministers, Minister Bayramov of Azerbaijan, and myself.
This was a very serious milestone by itself. Also, in this Declaration, the leaders agreed upon the major fundamental principles according to which the connectivity issue should be solved. I mean, unblocking and relaunching the transport infrastructure, transit ties between Armenia and Azerbaijan. And these principles are: acknowledgement of territorial integrity, inviolability of the borders, sovereignty of the countries, acknowledgement of national jurisdictions over the passages, the infrastructure which is going to be reconstructed and re-functioning.
Journalist: Is this what will be called “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity”?
Ararat Mirzoyan: The idea is much larger than that. Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to unblock the transport communications between themselves, and here we speak about the whole infrastructure. For instance, Armenia gets access to the Azerbaijani railway system, Azerbaijan gets access to the Armenian railway system, and later, roads and other infrastructure.
We can use each other's infrastructure like normal neighbors do, for instance, in Europe or elsewhere. The part of this infrastructure, which is the shortest connection between mainland Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, should be operated as TRIPP, which is “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity”.
So what is this TRIPP? Armenia and the United States are going to create a consortium, a company, which will be the constructor and the main operator of the railway passage. This consortium, in its turn, can hire a third company or companies to implement this or that, or provide this or that service for the whole passage. Also, this consortium can handle, can build and then operate pipelines, electricity cables etc.
So, all the arrangements are going to be reciprocal. We are also going to use, for instance, the territory of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic to connect north and south of Armenia by railway. There is no railway connection now.
Journalist: We had a chance to tour, to head on to the border with the European Union monitoring mission in Armenia. So they showed us the border regions, the mountains. We saw that. But let me ask you this, Mr. Minister. As difficult as the question may be to ask: do we have an approximate timeline as to when these borders – if I talk about specifically the border with Turkey – would be able to open for this free transit route, for travel, for everything, and when actually this railway route would start taking place? Because I remember the U.S. ambassador in Armenia also said that the U.S. had given 145 million for different projects. So, when can we see a timeline?
Ararat Mirzoyan: Look, as I said, we agreed upon the fundamental principles. So now we, with the delegation or a team from the United States, should agree upon the technical solutions, the technical modalities of the passage, of the company which I just mentioned. So we already started discussions with our American counterparts. I assume we can finalize this process in the coming months, and then construction should take place.
If we speak about this railway connection, I believe, the specialists say that it can take at least two years, for instance, etc. But we are very much interested in constructing, opening the ties, relaunching the ties between Armenia and Azerbaijan as soon as possible, because as I said, we are one of the main beneficiaries. We can also send goods, for instance, or receive goods using the infrastructure and territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan. But this is the connectivity part.
There is also the Peace Agreement, which was initialed by the Azerbaijani minister and myself. So we are ready: the text was finalized earlier this year in March, now it is initialed, and we are ready to sign the Treaty as soon as possible. The Azerbaijani side has some preconditions for it, we don't share this agenda. Nevertheless, not even waiting for the final signing ceremony of this Peace Treaty, there are also processes that can take place and are taking place even before this. For instance, we discussed the possibility of being more tolerant to each other or even cooperating on international fora, international platforms.
Journalist: After decades of conflict.
Ararat Mirzoyan: After decades of conflict. You can imagine what a burden is now accumulated on different platforms, different documents, conventions, where we have special opinions etc.
We jointly applied to OSCE structures with a request to close the structures of the Minsk process. So it's already a step which has been implemented.
Also, there is the delimitation of the state border. It started long ago. We have already delimited 12 kilometers of the border. And we visit the village, for instance, the Armenian village on this part of the border, we see that the village is flourishing. There is a new school, people feel more secure, feel safer, there is no security concern among the population, villagers. So there are processes that are taking place currently, and there are things which are to come.
Journalist: What about the challenges?
Ararat Mirzoyan: Well, you know, during the decades of conflict, there is also a huge psychological burden. There is the history and the memory of the blood on both sides. There is cautiousness among citizens, I believe, on both sides. So the reconciliation will take time, I believe. The peace, as I said, is established, but it needs some care, I would say, everyday care from both sides. And here I should, I have to mention that aggressive rhetoric from either side is not supporting at all.
Journalist: Talking about aggressive rhetoric, let me ask you this: what role does Russia still play? I think that it comes as an important question, right? We have been seeing Russia's role diminishing slowly in the South Caucasus. But how does it still play in Armenia's security today? Or does it not? Or does it no longer hold the same role that it played once 15 years ago?
Ararat Mirzoyan: Well, you know, officially, we saw the welcoming statements from high-ranking Russian officials, I mean, welcoming the establishment of peace, Washington Declaration. Again, officially, we saw an expressed readiness by Russian high-ranking officials to support the connectivity project, readiness to somehow participate. I cannot, of course, deny that we on a daily basis also observe heavy criticism by Russian media, sometimes state media, members of the parliament, experts, politicians, heavy criticism of the government of Armenia, and current foreign policy of Armenia.
Journalist: But why? Isn't it a good thing to see Armenia flourish with the West and get closer European ties?
Ararat Mirzoyan: Maybe you should ask your Russian guests, if any. But not even trying to understand the deep reasons, they can be simple, they can be sophisticated, but regardless, I think Russia, our Russian colleagues, as well as colleagues from any other third country, should respect the decisions of the people of Armenia. We are continuously having democratic elections, political parties go and introduce their agenda, their views on different crucial issues, and then citizens of Armenia decide. So our political party got the majority, led by our Prime Minister, got the majority of the votes, I mean, we got the support of the citizens of Armenia during snap parliamentary elections in 2021, in the middle of a very serious internal political crisis. We have had several public opinion polls this year, and now we are going to have an election again, a parliamentary election in June 2026. So we will see.
Journalist: And we hope at TVP World that we can be in Yerevan again to cover those elections. Thank you so much, Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, for being with us here on TVP World at the Warsaw Security Forum. I'm Diana Skaya. Thanks for watching. And this was our interview with Armenia's foreign minister, Ararat Mirzoyan.
