ArmInfo.Armenia will raise the issue of opening a road alternative to Upper Lars during the visit of the Foreign Minister of the country to Moscow. The press secretary of the Armenian Foreign Ministry Tigran Balayan stated during a briefing on June 5, answering the question what are the recent agreements on the possible opening of an alternative road to Russia through Abkhazia or South Ossetia.
Balayan recalled that the last meeting of Abashidze-Karasin took place in Prague, after which both the Georgian and Russian sides made public assessments. "Undoubtedly, within the framework of the visit of Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan to Moscow this issue will also be raised, and we did not hide and do not hide that the first party is interested in having an alternative link with Russia - this Armenia. And we will do everything we can to make this road open. For obvious reasons, there are different sides that not only promote this, but they also obstruct the opening of this road. We are supporters of ensuring that everything is held confidentially before reaching concrete agreements and results, "the RA MFA spokesman concluded.
Answering the question whether it is possible to sign a new strategic document between Armenia and Georgia, Balayan stressed that Tbilisi and Yerevan have a clear and simple spirit to do everything to ensure that warm relations between the two countries are capitalized into interstate ones so that they are raised to a qualitatively new level. According to him, while it is difficult to say in what kind of documents they will be expressed, however, now work on a large document is not being conducted.
Earlier it became known that the representatives of Russia and Georgia at the meeting in Prague reached an agreement according to which for the customs control of cargo in the territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia a tripartite commission consisting of representatives of Georgia, Russia and the Swiss company SGS should be formed. If the agreement is implemented, Armenia will have alternative ways of transporting goods in cases where the road through the Upper Lars is closed.
To recall, special Envoy of the Prime Minister of Georgia on Relations with Russia Zurab Abashidze said before the meeting with Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin that official Tbilisi is ready to open "trade corridors" from Russia to Georgia and Armenia.
To note, Yerevan is considering the implementation of the 2011 agreement on cargo monitoring at the Russian-Georgian border as an alternative to the Upper Lars checkpoint, which is the only land route linking Armenia to Russia. In winter, at the checkpoint due to the threat of avalanche collapse there are clusters of trucks, a similar situation occurs in the spring and autumn periods, when there is a threat of debris flow. At one of the government sessions, former Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan instructed the Transport Ministry to develop alternative transport communications with Russia and hold talks on this issue with the Russian and Georgian sides.