Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian says the delimitation and demarcation of the border with Azerbaijan, an issue that has been a key hurdle to a peace deal between the two countries after Baku retook control over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh last year, has begun.
Talking to residents of the Tavush region that borders Azerbaijan on March 18, Pashinian said the main goal of the border delimitation and demarcation was "to avoid a war," adding that special commissions will work on the issue "to decide where the Republic of Armenia starts and that will be the country's state border."
Participants at the meeting with Pashinian told RFE/RL that the Armenian leader did not give clear answers to local residents' questions, saying only that all of their concerns will be taken into account.
Meanwhile, Azerbaijan insists that four villages located close to Armenia's Tavush region and Azerbaijan's Qazax region must be ceded to Azerbaijan.
Pashinian said the villages under question -- Baganis Ayrim, Asagi Askipara, Xeyrimli, and Gezilxajili -- are de jure located on the territory of Azerbaijan.
Local residents say though that if the four villages are placed under Baku's jurisdiction, their own villages will turn out to be surrounded by Azerbaijani territories and border guards, which will make their life complicated.
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Locals Fear Being Cut Off Amid Armenian-Azerbaijani Peace Talks
The head of the local administration, Nver Beglarian, said residents of several villages in the area had expressed a readiness to block roads and organize self-defense if some of the local villages are put under Azerbaijan’s control.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars in the last three decades over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which had been a majority ethnic Armenian enclave since the Soviet collapse and is internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory.
The Azerbaijan-Armenia border in the Tavush district
The region initially came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces, backed by the Armenian military, in separatist fighting that ended in 1994.
In 2020, Azerbaijan took back parts of Nagorno-Karabakh along with seven surrounding districts that Armenian forces had claimed during the earlier conflict.
After Baku took full control over the region as a result of a one-day military operation in September 2023, nearly 100,000 ethnic Armenians fled Nagorno-Karabakh for Armenia.