Wednesday, April 17 2024 18:06

ArmInfo. During his visit to the Tavush region, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan also held a  meeting with residents of the Kirants and Berkaber communities. The Prime Minister's spokesperson Nazeli Baghdasaryan officially denied the statements attributed to the head of the Cabinet during the visit.

"After today's meetings in the villages of Voskepar, Kirants,  Berkaber, a number of sources attributed some statements to Nikol  Pashinyan. All statements that were not made or confirmed by the  Prime Minister, or an official authorized to represent him, or a  government agency are officially refuted," she wrote on the Facebook.

Notably, according to the local media sources, strict security  measures were taken before the meeting. As political scientist Suren  Petrosyan, who has been living in Voskepar for a month, reported, the  meeting with Pashinyan is closed, people are not allowed to film  anything.

Let us recall that the head of the Armenian government visited  Voskepar on March 18, promising its residents to return in 10 days.  But actually he did it a month later. At the first meeting, Pashinyan  threatened that a war would break out if the Armenian side refused to  transfer 4 villages to Baku

The topic of delimitation of the border with Azerbaijan and  territorial concessions became relevant again after, the office of  Deputy Prime Minister of Azerbaijan Shahin Mustafayev stated on March  9 that as part of the process of delimitation and demarcation of the  border with Armenia, "issues of the liberation of 4 exclave villages  should be immediately resolved ( Baghanis Ayrim, Ashaghi (Lower)  Askipara, Kheyrimli, and Gizilhajili)". 

Baku is also confident that within the framework of the delimitation  process "the issue of liberation of four exclave villages (Yukori  Eskipara, Sofulu, Berhudarli in the Armenian Tavush, as well as Kerki  (Armenian - Tigranashen) in the Ararat region, on the border with  Nakhichevan will be resolved". At the same time, Baku denied the  statements of the Armenian authorities that Azerbaijan occupied the  territory of 31 Armenian settlements in five regions with a total  area of about 200 square kilometers, calling it "an unfounded  statement." Some of them came under the control of Azerbaijan back in  the 1990s during the first Karabakh war, the others as a result of  Azerbaijani aggression in 2021-2022.

In response, Pashinyan stated that villages with such names were not  even part of the Armenian SSR. In addition, Yerevan announced its  readiness to begin the delimitation process from Tavush.