A section of the road linking two Armenian towns, Goris and Kapan, has in fact been handed over to Azerbaijan, MP Anna Grigoryan from the opposition Armenia faction told reporters in the parliament on Wednesday.
“Members of the Civil Contract faction were recently in Goris and I understood from their posts that they were in Tatev. I wonder why they didn’t pass through the Goris-Kapan road section to understand the feelings of our compatriots,” she said.
In her words, the facts indicate that the Goris-Kapan road section has de facto been handed over to Azerbaijan.
Grigoryan noted that Iranian citizens have a stamp placed in their documents when entering Armenia at the Meghri customs checkpoint, and Azerbaijanis place their stamp over the Armenian one on the Goris-Kapan road section.
"When leaving Armenia, our customs officers put another stamp over the Azerbaijani one, de facto recognizing that the Azerbaijanis have full control over this road section. But there is no legal document in this regard," the MP said.
Grigoryan recalled that as a result of the previous construction works an Azerbaijani customs checkpoint was set up on the road, adding new construction is currently underway and it is not known yet what is being built.
She noted that in order to clarify these issues, the opposition factions invited the heads of the relevant agencies to the National Assembly, but the latter refused to appear in parliament or attend a meeting of the Standing Committee on Defense and Security.
"Judging from that, I can assume that they have some kind of secret agreement, which they don't want to speak about, or they simply don't know what is going on," said the lawmaker.
According to her, there are no well-maintained roads to the villages of Bardzravan, Shurnukh, Vorotan and no construction works either.
She said that the dirt road leading to the villages passes through a wooded area and is extremely inconvenient for travel in winter.
Anna Grigoryan added that currently the Goris-Kapan road is used less often than the Tatev road.