YEREVAN, November 7. /TASS/. Armenia is interested in the 3+3 format and in other regional projects that doesn’t duplicate the existing formats, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Sunday.
"Armenia is interested in the 3+3 format, like in any other regional project, if it doesn’t duplicate other existing formats. If this project brings a new agenda, it is interesting. But it would be pointless to discuss in this format the agenda, which is addressed, say, within the Minsk Group or the working group on unblocking communications," he said in an interview with Armenia’s Public Television.
According to Pashinyan, regional cooperation is a major provision in the government’s program. Armenia, in his words, is interested in any projects helping to open the region’s potential.
The initiative on six-party cooperation on Nagorno-Karabakh and on issues of unblocking economic and transport ties in the South Caucasus came from Azerbaijani and Turkish Presidents, Ilham Aliyev and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Iran welcomed this idea and said it was ready to promote steps towards peace in the region. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the Russian side is working with the Armenian colleagues and hopes that Georgia will also express its readiness to join this mechanism. Georgia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs David Zalkaliani noted that Tbilisi should also be represented in a new negotiating format, despite its strains with Russia.
The ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh is not observed,Pashinyan said.
"With a heavy heart, I have to state that the ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh is not fully observed. It was confirmed by Russian peacekeepers as well. I hope a thorough probe will be conducted and necessary measures will be taken," he said in an interview with Armenia’s Public Television.
The demarcation and delimitation of the border with Azerbaijan, opening communications and the Karabakh settlement are separate issues, Pashinyan said.
"We have said more than once that the processes of demarcation and delimitation, the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, opening of regional communications are separate issues. This is our position. I said at a government meeting back in May that I am ready to sign the Russia-initiated document on the demarcation and delimitation and you probably remember the political uproar it stirred up," he said in an interview with Armenia’s Public Television.