“We had such an experience in the Soviet period. We received gas from Azerbaijan through three huge pipelines. Now we can restore these pipelines if there are no political issues between our countries. And we can also become a transit country for gas from Azerbaijan to Europe; the same goes for electricity. We are ready to build and rebuild all these communications,” Armenian Deputy Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure Hakob Vardanyan said at an international conference in Tbilisi on Friday.
Sources told ET that such initiatives could unblock potential of the landlocked region.
This comes after Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced on Thursday that a peace treaty with neighbouring Azerbaijan is on the cards and could be clinched in the next few months.
“We are currently working on the draft peace and relations’ normalisation agreement with Azerbaijan, and I hope that this process will be successfully completed in the coming months,” Pashinyan announced in his address at the Tbilisi (Georgia) Silk Road International Forum on Thursday.
He highlighted two principles of the peace agenda on which an agreement can be reached with Azerbaijan: “Armenia and Azerbaijan mutually recognise each other’s territorial integrity with the understanding that the territory of Armenia is 29,800 square kilometres, the territory of Azerbaijan is 86,600 square km…(and) Armenia and Azerbaijan agree to carry out border delimitation on the basis of the 1991 Alma Ata Declaration.” He further said, “The symbolic meaning of that declaration is as follows: the Soviet Union will cease to exist and the 12 republics that signed the declaration, including Armenia and Azerbaijan, recognise each other’s territorial integrity, sovereignty, and the inviolability of administrative borders, and, therefore, the existing administrative borders between the republics of the Soviet Union become national borders.”He expressed hope that the peace treaty with Azerbaijan will be signed in the coming months. “I hope in the near future there will be developments also towards opening the border between Armenia and Turkey for citizens of third countries and holders of diplomatic passports,” he added.
