There are many layers and subtexts under the events that are taking place along the length of the Armenian-Azerbaijani borderline, and it’s important for us to understand and translate them correctly. This is what Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said during today’s question-and-answer session with government officials in parliament, touching upon the comment on the placement of an Azerbaijani police checkpoint in the Vorotan section of the Goris-Kapan road and the question why Iranian drivers are stopped and charged money.

Pashinyan declared that in December 2020, the positions of the Armed Forces of Armenia were matched with the borders inherited from the former USSR in order to avoid new military escalation.

“In 2010, the National Assembly adopted a law on administrative-territorial division which clearly states that the administrative boundaries of Shurnukh and Vorotan villages correspond to the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. In two sites in those sections, the Goris-Kapan road is beyond the administrative boundary of the Republic of Armenia or Soviet Armenia. This is also why the panels and footholds are placed in the spots that are known to us,” he said.

According to him, in December 2020, an agreement was reached according to which the road should be used freely for the transit of vehicles and cargo in the Republic of Armenia.

“I assume that since the fact of foreign cargo was not recorded in the agreement, in this situation, Azerbaijan is using this measure, perhaps in response to Armenia’s statements that the provision related to the provision of a corridor through the territory of Armenia is not mentioned in the trilateral statements signed on November 9, 2020 and January 11, 2021. Although Armenia acknowledges the fact that routes need to be opened in the region, it records that foreign cargo must cross customs, passport and other points while drivers cross the territory of Armenia, even while moving from the western regions of Azerbaijan to the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic,” he said.