Armenia’s Crossroads of Peace project has gained global significance, says Prime Minister Pashinyan
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YEREVAN, OCTOBER 12, ARMENPRESS. The Crossroads of Peace project developed by the Armenian government is gaining more global significance with time, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has said.
“As a rule, we’ve been perceiving the project within a regional logic, but the global changes give global significance to the Crossroads of Peace project,” PM Pashinyan said at a conference titled Crossroads of Peace: Combining Security and Democracy.
The prime minister spoke about the problems that emerged in terms of the flow of goods and passengers as a result of the developments in Ukraine. Before, he said, major flows from highly developed industrial regions were directed to Europe, with most passing through Russia to the West.
“The Russia-West passage decreased significantly because of the developments in Ukraine, the sanctions and deteriorating political relations. And we see that problems emerge on the path of the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of goods. This is the reason why goods worth hundreds of billions are now searching for new paths to flow towards the biggest markets,” Pashinyan said.
The prime minister underscored that the movement of goods is not unilateral: it concerns both directions: East-West and West-East. Now, hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of goods are searching new ways to the West.
“This is the reason that, with time, the Crossroads of Peace project has been gaining global significance,” the PM said.
Pashinyan once again explained the meaning of the project.
“There is a static state in over 70 percent in Armenia’s borders in the region, the borders are not serving to the task of ensuring the flow of that goods. And the meaning of the Crossroads of Peace project is for Armenia to have its contribution in terms of servicing that huge economic flows. Moreover, the needs of Central Asian countries, in terms of exports and imports, don’t anyhow have secondary importance here. The main idea is that Armenia offers its services on the path of the movements of those goods and rendering of services from East to West, West to East, South to North, and North to South,” Pashinyan said.