The Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has told Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishushtin that the Lachin corridor is not under the control of Russian peacekeepers. The two prime ministers met in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on the sidelines of a meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council on Thursday (2 February).
Pashinyan recognised the currently strained security relations between Armenia and Russia, telling the Russian PM, "you know that the Russian Federation is the key partner of Armenia in the field of security and, unfortunately, the situation is not so good with us in the field of security."
"You know that the Lachin corridor has been blocked for more than a month, which, according to the Trilateral Statement of the President of the Russian Federation, the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, should be under the control of Russian peacekeepers. Now it turns out that the Lachin corridor is not under the control of Russian peacekeepers, which creates specific problems," said the Armenian PM.
Both sides reaffirm commitment to unblocking transport routes in the region
Referring to the reports of food and fuel shortages, and power blackouts in the Armenian-populated region, Pashinyan said: "Now we can say that a humanitarian crisis is escalating in Nagorno-Karabakh. It is a very important and sensitive issue in our bilateral relations. Unfortunately, we have certain issues in the field of security also in the multilateral format, in the CSTO, and we hope that we will manage to solve all these issues. We are working, we are interested, but unfortunately, frankly speaking, we see no progress in those directions."
The Prime Minister of Armenia stressed that his country is not only ready, but also interested in opening transport and economic communications.
In turn, Mishushtin said: "we are consistently advocating the unblocking of economic and transport communications in Transcaucasia. We consider it important to ensure the implementation of the agreements reached by the leaders of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The creation of new transport infrastructure routes is in the interests of all states of the region."
Mishushtin also touched on Russia and Armenia's economic ties, saying, "Russia is Armenia's leading foreign trade partner and the main investor in the economy. Let me give examples. In January-November last year, mutual trade increased by 77% compared to 2021. It exceeded 4.1 billion USD, which for today is a record-high indicator in our mutual trade."
"The volume of Russian investments is about 2 billion USD. More than 40 leading Russian companies operate in the Armenian market and are among the largest taxpayers in Armenia."