Unblocking regional communications in the South Caucasus should be possible without the geopolitics of the day, Onnik James Krikorian, a journalist, photographer and media consultant from the United Kingdom, told Report.
“Everyone is in favor of unblocking economic and transport communications in the region but very definitely since October 2022 it has been pretty clear that geopolitical rivalry following the February invasion of Ukraine by Russia now proves to be an obstacle.
As for whether Yerevan froze the work of the trilateral working group under pressure or because it simply didn’t want to see some degree of Russian FSB control over a major transportation project running through its territory is unclear. For Pashinyan, though, it was the last thing he wanted as he started to seek diversification away from Moscow in nearly every sphere,” he said.
“Today, bilateral talks have become preferable between Yerevan and Baku and I see no reason why that shouldn’t be the case here.”
“On that, what I think is important is that the issue of restoring communication from Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan via Armenia does not continue to be the focus for Russia-West competition.
Besides, whether it is viable in the future will be dependent on Armenia and Azerbaijan and also those countries hoping to benefit from it. But I do think that we should again differentiate unblocking regional communications and restoring the links to Nakhchivan.
The first should be possible without the geopolitics of the day. The second might take a lot longer especially as Armenia’s rail network is under Russian control through the South Caucasus Railways monopoly until 2037,” he added.