Pashinyan provides details on the idea of simultaneous withdrawal of troops proposed to Azerbaijan

YEREVAN, 9 FEBRUARY, ARMENPRESS. Armenia and Azerbaijan should first of all take steps to increase security, stability on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, pursuing the goal of setting up a border demarcation commission, ARMENPRESS reports Prime Minister NIkol Pashinyan said at the parliament-Cabinet Q&A session, answering the question of Vahagn Aleksanyan from the “Civil Contract” Party, who asked for details about that idea.

"You are aware that the trilateral written statement adopted in Sochi on November 26, 2021, signed by the President of Russia, the President of Azerbaijan and me, states that the parties agreed to take steps to increase security and stability on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and to pursue the goal of setting up a bilateral commission on demarcationa and delimitation. Since we are interested in this, naturally, we must remain committed to our agreement, and so we made an offer. Our idea is that the armed forces should withdraw simultaneously," Pashinyan said.

The PM clarified what means a simultaneous withdrawal of troops.

"It means that the troops must be withdrawn at an equal distance from the Armenian-Azerbaijani border line, after which the border protection must be handed over to a limited number of border guards, while an international monitoring must take place for the implementation of the agreements."

The next fundamental issue that arises is whether there is a state border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Our answer to the question is definitely positive. Why? Because there was a border between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Soviet times, which was delimited, and with the 1991 agreement on the establishment of the CIS, which was ratified by the parliaments of both Armenia and Azerbaijan, those borders were recognized. Therefore, we think that these agreements should be implemented in this logic. Moreover, we are ready to listen to other proposals, other ideas," said the Prime Minister.

According to the Prime Minister, there are many ungrounded speculations on this topic that the villages will remain without protection…

"There is nothing like that, everything is taken into account in the package of proposals. We must also admit that it’s not so that the proposal we are making are 100% comfortable for Armenia or discomfort for Azerbaijan. There is a border line and, we think that there should be a withdrawal along that border line, noting that this does not predetermine the further results of the demarcation and delimitation, but they should be the subject of relevant negotiations”, the PM said.