Railway Construction to Take at Least 2 Years: Mirzoyan

"Is there an approximate timeline for when these borders, particularly the border with Turkey, will be opened for free transit, travel, and so on? And is it already known when this railway line will practically begin?" a journalist from the Polish TV channel TVP World asked Minister Mirzoyan during the Warsaw Security Forum.

"We have already started discussions with our American partners. I think in the coming months we can complete this process, and after that, construction must begin. If we talk about the railway connection, experts say that its construction could take, for example, at least two years. But we are very interested in building, opening, and restarting the connections between Armenia and Azerbaijan as soon as possible, because, as I said, we are one of the main beneficiaries. We can also, for example, send or receive goods using the infrastructure and territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan. But this is on the communications part.

There is also the part of the Peace Treaty, which was pre-signed by the Azerbaijani Minister and myself. So, we are ready: the text was finalized earlier, in March of this year, now it is pre-signed, and we are ready to sign that treaty as soon as possible. The Azerbaijani side is putting forward certain preconditions; we do not share that agenda. However, even before the final signing ceremony of the Peace Treaty, there are processes that are already underway or can take place before the signing," the Armenian Foreign Minister noted.

Ararat Mirzoyan presented the closure of the OSCE Minsk Group structures as a result of one of the first joint steps taken by Yerevan and Baku.

"There is also the process of delimitation of the state border. It started a long time ago. We have already delimited 12 kilometers of the border. For example, when visiting an Armenian village in that border section, one can see that it is really developing: a new school has been built, people feel more secure, there are no security concerns among the population, the villagers. So, there are processes that are already underway, and there are also steps that are still ahead," Mirzoyan noted.

The Armenian Foreign Minister does not hide that the settlement of the decades-long conflict will require some time. "There is a history and memory of blood on both sides. I think that among the societies, probably on both sides, there is still caution. The reconciliation process will take time. Peace, as I have already mentioned, has been established, but it requires constant care and daily effort from both sides. In this context, I must mention that aggressive rhetoric from any side does not contribute to the process in any way," Mirzoyan noted.