Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), on Wednesday commented on the matter of opening the transport communications in the South Caucasus.
In particular, she responded to this remark and question by a Russian reporter: “Armenian Deputy Prime Minister Grigoryan said that the trilateral Moscow, Baku, and Yerevan commission for the unblocking of regional communications has interrupted its meetings because there is no consensus on some issues. The main problem there remains the creation of a corridor between the main part of Azerbaijan and [its] Nakhichevan [exclave] through Syunik Province of Armenia. Tell me, please, hasn’t Moscow lost hope of achieving the opening of communications in this region?’
Zakharova responded as follows: “Well, I believe it’s not about hope or the lack of it, but about finding mutually acceptable results, or reaching a mutually acceptable result, finding a mutually acceptable solution that will satisfy both Baku and Yerevan.
Within the framework of the trilateral working group under the co-chairmanship of the deputy prime ministers of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, we have been actively working in this direction all this time.
Basically, we [i.e. Russia] still are ready to provide all-round assistance to our partners. As we have already said, the entire region will benefit from the unblocking of transport communications.
We draw attention also to the last comment of Alexei Overchuk, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, co-chairman of the trilateral working group, regarding this issue. He emphasized that here is a direct quote: ‘Unblocking the economic and transport corridors in the South Caucasus is possible only with the participation of Russia.’ That is why we are working in this direction.”
