Armenia ready for border simplifications within Washington accords, says PM Pashinyan

Armenia is ready to carry out any kind of border checkpoint simplifications on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, and all other border crossing points, within the framework of the 5 principles enshrined in the Washington accords, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has said.

“The Washington accords clearly stipulate the five principles that this agreement is based on – territorial integrity, sovereignty, jurisdiction, inviolability of borders and reciprocity,” he said at a press briefing. “Upon presenting the Crossroads of Peace project, we had already said that we are ready for regulations, simplifications based on these principles.”

Pashinyan pointed out examples across the world where such border simplifications are in effect. He said that the use of biometric passports and digital technologies have enabled entirely new procedures. 

“The methods where you have to pat down people won’t exist in all countries, including in all borders of Armenia, in 5, 10 or 15 years. And we will go for simplifications. But we will make these simplifications not only in the Armenian-Azerbaijani border checkpoints, but all other checkpoints as well, in order to maximally facilitate the business environment, exports, imports and transit, which is the most convenient and important environment for business in any case. We are ready for any simplification that fits into the framework of the five principles,” he said.