Emotions High as Four Villages in Tavush Province Are Returned to Azerbaijan

“For the first time, there will be a demarcated state border between our countries [Armenia and Azerbaijan] in the section of the four villages,” he said, as quoted by Armenia’s state-run Armenpress news agency.

“Let’s note that Azerbaijan is very close to those villages even today and they are under direct fire. Yes, as a result of this process, the border guard service of Azerbaijan will get closer to the villages of Kirants and Voskepar, but their villages and ours will be separated by a delimited state border. This is a key factor and let’s not forget that the border protection will be carried out by the border guards of the Republic of Armenia. In addition, there are many details of providing security, which will also be discussed and detailed in the near future,” Pashinyan’s Office said.

It acknowledged that “a few hundred meters of the road outline” will have to be changed in the section of the village of Kirants, which it said “is not something difficult and will be implemented within a few months.”

“But this is not the only road for Kirants. The Kirants-Acharkut-Ijevan road will be repaired, maybe rebuilt as well. We mean, Kirants also has an alternative road, and practically there are no major problems,” the premier’s office said.

“It is also important to record that the Commissions agreed that in the entire process of border delimitation between Armenia and Azerbaijan, they will rely on the 1991 Alma Ata Declaration, which is recorded as a fundamental principle of the border delimitation process,” it stressed.

Meanwhile, the deal was touted as another success of the government in Azerbaijan.

“Armenia has agreed to return four villages under occupation since the early 1990s,” Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Aykhan Hajizada wrote on social media, describing it as a “long-awaited historic event.”

Protests Held

The Armenian opposition groups have also condemned Pashinyan’s latest concessions to Baku, They argue that the areas in question are strategically located along one of the two main Armenian highways leading to the Georgian border as well as the pipeline supplying Russian natural gas to Armenia via Georgia.

Azerbaijan would gain control of a section of that highway adjacent to the Tavush village of Kirants as a result of the planned Armenian troop withdrawal. Scores of residents of Kirants and several other border communities rallied there early on Saturday in a bid to scuttle the land handover to Baku. They were joined by Bishop Bagrat Galstanyan, the outspoken head of the Tavush Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

“The delimitation process must take place in a comprehensive, package manner, with clear rules and maps, in accordance with Armenia’s laws, through a referendum, and with international guarantees,” Galstanyan insisted on Monday.

The protesters unblocked the road section on Saturday night after Grigoryan agreed to meet with the heads of the village administrations on Monday. They blocked it again the following morning amid reports that the Armenian military is about to start demining the border areas in preparation for their handover to Azerbaijan. The military did not comment on those reports.

“They told us to open the road so that they give us an answer on Monday,” one woman from Kirants told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “But they fooled us. We woke up this morning and witnessed another incident. That’s why we don’t trust in their words anymore.”

“We will keep spending nights here,” said another protester. “For a couple of times, police forces came here to try to convince us to reopen the road, but that obviously hasn’t happened.”

There were strong indications of unfolding demining work outside the nearby village of Voskepar on Monday. A group of angry villagers confronted military personnel who appeared to be trying to clear a contested area next to a 7th century Armenian church of landmines. They demanded an immediate halt to the apparent demining. Bishop Galstanian also arrived at the scene, effectively urging the military to defy Pashinyan’s withdrawal orders.

Riot police cordoned off the church to keep Voskepar residents and other protesters from approaching it and disrupting the mine clearance seen as a preparation for the area’s handover to Azerbaijan. The tense standoff there continued for a few hours, with the protesters eventually being given access to the church.