Expert: Azerbaijan should increase pressure on Armenia using Lachin corridor

"By increasing the pressure on Armenia using the Lachin corridor, we can make official Yerevan show a more constructive position on the Zangazur corridor," transport expert Yasin Mustafayev told Report.

According to him, the more Armenia resists in this issue, the more it will not be able to get out of the pit and will continue to remain a stumbling block in the region.

"Armenia has enough interest in opening the Zangazur corridor. It has almost no railway connections with any country. This significantly limits the ability to transport heavy goods, including with its main allies Iran and Russia. The opening of the corridor will give them an advantage in this sense. On the other hand, Turkey has linked the restoration of relations with Armenia to the opening of the Zangazur corridor. In other words, Armenia's economic losses from the current resistance are many times greater than its political interests."

The expert believes that the Armenian side's raising the customs issue is another political move by Nikol Pashinyan.

"In his speeches, the Prime Minister repeatedly stressed the need to open the Zangazur corridor, both in terms of establishing relations with the world and per the November 10 Statement. After the idea that there will be customs control in the Zangazur corridor, Azerbaijan can rightly put forward a similar approach in the Lachin corridor. We have every right to do so in accordance with all international norms, and no one can prevent the implementation of this right. During the Great Patriotic War, Azerbaijan showed the whole world what it means to speak to Baku in the language of force."

Mustafayev thinks that in the current situation, the non-operation of any control tools in the Lachin corridor should be taken only as a humanism of the Azerbaijani side and in the spirit of the November 10 Statement.

"Unfortunately, the part of Armenian society that still lives with revanchist views has a hard time understanding this. By launching this talk, Nikol Pashinyan can be considered as attempting to show the public that the Azerbaijani side has the ability to adequately respond to any demarche, and that the party that loses the most is Armenia itself. Therefore, I think that if Armenia continues to resist regarding the customs issue, we must close the Lachin corridor, set up posts there, or use other similar pressure mechanisms. Previous experience also shows that this is the most effective language understood by the other side at this stage."

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said at the meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels on December 14 that the legal state of the Zangazur corridor should be the same as the Lachin corridor. President Ilham Aliyev stressed that Azerbaijan provides security and unimpeded access to relations between Karabakh and Armenia.

"Armenia must ensure equal access and security for relations between Azerbaijan and its Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. Thus, today there is no customs checkpoint in the Lachin corridor. Therefore, there should be no customs in the Zangazur corridor. If Armenia insists on using its customs to control cargo and passenger transport, then we will insist on the same in the Lachin corridor."

As a result of a trilateral meeting of President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, President of the European Council Charles Michel and Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan on December 14, an agreement was reached on the construction of a railway along the Zangazur corridor.