Official: Zangazur corridor to expand Nakhchivan's opportunities

The implementation of the Zangazur corridor will expand Nakhchivan's opportunities as a logistics centre, Presidential Envoy to the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic Fuad Najafli said.

He made the remarks at the "New Horizons of Business in Nakhchivan: the potential of entrepreneurship and development prospects” conference hosted by Nakhchivan Business Centre on May 26, Report informs.

Nothing that in this context new energy projects will be implemented in Nakhchivan, and new jobs will open, Najafli added that mechanism for supporting entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship will remain the focus as a priority area.

According to him, Nakhchivan is turning into a free economic zone, new horizons are opening up for entrepreneurs and investors.

Deputy chairman of PAŞA Bank Bahruz Nagiyev, government representatives and entrepreneurs attended the conference.

Prior to the start of the conference, the participants visited the monument of national leader Heydar Aliyev and laid flowers on it.

The trilateral ceasefire deal signed by the Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian leaders on November 10, 2020, ended the three-decade conflict over Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region, which along with the seven adjacent districts came under the occupation of Armenian armed forces in the war in the early 1990s.

On January 11, 2021, the sides signed a second statement set to implement clause 9 of the first one related to the unblocking of all economic and transport communications in the region.

As was stated in the ceasefire deal’s article 9, “All economic and transport connections in the region shall be unblocked. The Republic of Armenia shall guarantee the security of transport connections between the western regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic in order to arrange unobstructed movement of persons, vehicles and cargo in both directions.”

Azerbaijan strongly believes that Article 9 encompasses the opening of the Zangazur Corridor and although Russia, whose border guards are supposed to be responsible for overseeing transportation between Azerbaijan and Armenia, does not refer to the route as the Zangezur Corridor nor as a “corridor”, it does support its opening. Azerbaijan is decisively committed to the creation of this corridor and the restoration of transport links as it considers cooperation to be the main tool for creating durable peace in the region.

The Zangazur Corridor aims to give Azerbaijan unrestricted access to its Nakhchivan enclave without any Armenian checkpoints while it passes through Armenian territory near the Tehran-Yerevan border. In a general sense, the corridor is a geopolitical project connecting Europe with Central Asia and China through the Azerbaijan-Türkiye route.