Yerevan must provide Baku with locations for the planned road and railway to be built between Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan, an exclave of Azerbaijani territory currently accessible only through Armenia, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev said on Tuesday.
Plans for such a path, also known as the Zangezur corridor, were included in the November 2020 pact ending the conflict over Karabakh, formerly known as Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani territory that was under Armenian occupation for nearly 30 years, however, since then, Armenia has not cooperated.
Aliyev made the remarks in a meeting with a delegation led by Toivo Klaar, the European Union’s envoy for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia, according to a statement by the presidency.
Aliyev said his meeting with Azerbaijani Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on April 6, chaired by EU Council head Charles Michel, was productive and served as an initial step for peace negotiations. In the meeting, the two sides agreed to establish a working group and a border commission to move towards a peace treaty, he noted.
However, Aliyev said there were a number of issues the Armenian side must clarify, one of them being the issue of land and rail connections between Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan.
The process of constructing the railway is still ongoing, and 60% of the section within Azerbaijani territory has been completed, according to the president, who added that the project is expected to be finished by 2023.
"Armenia hasn't even launched the feasibility studies yet ... This indicates that the process might take longer," he said.
As for the motorway, Aliyev said it would reach Armenian borders by late 2023, and that Pashinian did not specify the geographical coordinates essential for the project during talks in Brussels, adding that a Feb. 2 videoconference with the premier yielded no concrete results.
Relations between Baku and Yerevan have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Karabakh.
When new clashes erupted in 2020, Azerbaijani troops liberated swathes of occupied territory from Armenian troops before Russia brokered a cease-fire.
The three countries later agreed to develop economic ties and infrastructure for the benefit of the entire region
