Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, stated during Monday’s joint press conference, in Lithuania, with his Lithuanian colleague, Ingrida Šimonytė that he believes that the return of all captives, hostages, and other detainees will provide a certain positive background against which it will be possible to create more effective opportunities for negotiations on [Armenia-Azerbaijan border] demarcation and delimitation, [opening of] regional communications, and a political and comprehensive settlement of the Karabakh conflict.
“We collaborate within the framework of the trilateral working group, with the participation of the deputy prime ministers of Armenia, Russia, and Azerbaijan, which was set up on the basis of the January 11 statement. It refers to the unblocking of transport and communication in the region. The latter, in turn, stems from point 9 of the November 9, 2020 statement, whose core is that all transport and economic communications shall open. Unfortunately, the communications have not been opened yet, as there is a problem; sometimes comments are made that are beyond this logic of the statement,” Pashinyan stated.
According to him, it is logical that the motorways and railways that exist between Armenia and Azerbaijan should have been opened or been in the phase of opening. Pashinyan hoped that it will be possible to make progress in this issue.
"In this context, I want to emphasize the humanitarian issue. According to the November 9 statement, [all] the captives, hostages, and other detainees should have been returned by this time, but, unfortunately, they [i.e., the Armenian detainees in Azerbaijan] have not been returned yet,” Pashinyan said.
