What von der Leyen doesn't know about. Or doesn't want to know

Azerbaijan has almost completed its section of the future Zangezur corridor. There is just a little bit left to put an end to the construction work, and the Goradiz-Jabrayil-Zangilan-Agbend road (the border with Armenia) will be fully operational.

The foundation was laid in October 2021 with the participation of the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Turkiye. In less than four years, a 124-kilometer highway was built, which is the automobile segment of the Zangezur corridor. And 43 kilometers of the route, which fall on the territory of Armenia, did not even begin to be built.

The other day, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan tried once again to blurt out Yerevan's commitment to open the Zangezur corridor with a proposal to open a railway connection along the Goradiz-Yeraskh line, which both sides will use on an equal basis. "Armenia is ready now," Pashinyan said, continuing to pretend that he does not understand why there can be no question of any equality in the positions of the parties.

It is commendable that Yerevan has started talking about a road through Zangezur, but Armenia cannot and will not use Azerbaijani roads under the same conditions as the Zangezur Corridor will operate. She owes Azerbaijan too much to entertain the idea of a balanced partnership. Azerbaijan has balanced partnerships on transport corridors with Russia, Iran, and Georgia, but relations with Armenia are in a completely different category. For Azerbaijan, Armenia is not a regional partner for mutually beneficial cooperation, but an occupier who committed ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Azerbaijani people, carried out total destruction and caused damage to our country worth tens of billions of dollars. And let's not forget that Yerevan's peacefulness today is not the result of goodwill and coming to the truth, but of military defeat. Many in the world now want this past to be archived and Baku and Yerevan to start building relations from scratch. It won't work from scratch. At least because the neighbor has not yet even offered a basic apology for what he did and has not repented of his bloody deeds against the Azerbaijani people. On the contrary, the image of Armenia is being hastily rebranded from "winner" to "victim".

Probably, Pashinyan still sincerely wants both the opening of communications and cooperation. But it's not enough to want. In addition, he arranges every step in such a way that everything looks like a big favor to Azerbaijan, although everyone around understands what's what. Let him have fun, but all these reprises take up time. And while Pashinyan is hesitating, a front is forming in his country against the corridor through Zangezur. Three years ago, it was easier for him to implement the project than it is today. But this, of course, is not our problem.

"Armenia should announce that it is withdrawing from negotiations on connecting the main territory of Azerbaijan with Nakhchivan through Meghri (Western Zangezur), which threatens it with a dead end," former Prime Minister Khosrov Harutyunyan, who headed the Armenian government during the occupation of the First Karabakh War, told reporters. The revanchist convinces that the road will not give anything to the Armenians, but it will connect Azerbaijan with Turkiye. "It turns out that we need to invest 150 million dollars from our funds to build a railway so that Azerbaijan can connect to Turkiye by a convenient road?", - Harutyunyan is indignant, who, when he was prime minister, personally proposed blowing up the railway through Zangezur, arguing that "if there is no railway, there is no problem."

There are enough reasons why there will be no reciprocity between Azerbaijan and Armenia, as Pashinyan says. Surely, Yerevan understands that stubbornness in this matter is inappropriate. And that makes them even more stubborn. Armenia is getting closer and closer to the line beyond which it will remain without unblocked communications at all, despite all the efforts of the patrons to change the situation. It is enough to recall the recent statements by the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, at the EU-Central Asia summit in Samarkand. The European official described the special importance and indispensability of Armenian transit after the opening of borders with Armenia by Azerbaijan and Turkey. It was said as if there were no existing corridors and well-established logistics in the region, but Armenia is fully ready to provide international transit of hundreds of millions of tons, and it remains only to raise the barrier. As President Ilham Aliyev said on this occasion, "we can understand the feelings of European bureaucrats towards Armenia, but you cannot ignore the map."

It turns out that the EU, represented by the President of the European Commission, ignores everything that Azerbaijan and Georgia have done so that Ms. von der Leyen can discuss the partnership on rare earth materials with the Central Asian countries today. If it were not for the corridors built by Azerbaijan and running through Georgia, it would not have such an opportunity.

It is noteworthy that before Armenia came under Macron's tutelage, the neighbors understood the benefits of the Zangezur corridor. This is indicated by publications in the Armenian media. You can learn a lot of interesting things from the publications of that period. At that time, Armenian railway workers were not afraid to express their opinions and welcomed the prospect of launching a railway.

The railway through Nakhchivan was the main freight highway of the Armenian SSR. There were other railway lines from Armenia: the first one went through Ayrum to Tbilisi and then through Sukhumi, the second one went from Ijevan to Gazakh and further to the Caspian coast. But both routes could carry trains with a maximum of 1,900 tons, while through Nakhchivan - up to 4,500 tons, the Armenian media wrote in 2021.

Levon Hakobyan, Chairman of the Council of Veterans of the Southern Railway, told reporters that the road ran over flat terrain, and heavier trains could be launched along it. In addition, they could go faster, which meant that the traffic capacity was higher. Therefore, in Soviet times, all major cargoes to Armenia - grain, metals, oil products - were transported along this route. "If the railway is launched, we will have to think about the interests of our country, that is, about convenient and cheap delivery of our goods to Russia and Iran," said the veterans of the Armenian railway enthusiastically. At that time, the first calculations were already being made. It was argued that for the economic development and the entire national economy of Armenia, it is necessary to increase the freight turnover by rail to 5 million tons in the first three years. Because the growth of the republic's economy is possible only under the operating conditions of the Yerevan-Tbilisi-Baku-Moscow railway section, and already today, and not in two years.

In the same year, 2021, on the eve, as everyone thought, of the imminent unblocking of communications, the public organization Union of Informed Citizens decided to study the condition of the Armenian railways. It would be very useful for Mrs. von der Leyen to get acquainted with the results of that study, who believes that the opening of Armenia's borders will solve everything, and the "golden age" of trade between Asia and Europe will begin.

According to the organization's research, over the course of three decades, most of the railways in Armenia have been abandoned, and in some cases dismantled. The roads to the state borders with Turkiye and Azerbaijan are overgrown with grass. The Armenian side dismantled the railway section from Yeraskh to Sadarak. About a kilometer of tracks to the border with Turkiye have been dismantled. The road from Ijevan to the state border of Azerbaijan is completely abandoned. Once upon a time, Yerevan-Ijevan-Agstafa-Ganja-Yevlakh-Baku trains ran along this road, built in the early 80s. The last train ran on this route in 1992. Experts admit that the road has been looted or destroyed in places. Moreover, the thieves took away not only the railway electrical lines, but also the poles of the power line, looted the buildings of stations and substations. The theft continues even now. So, in 2020, the police reported that someone dismantled and stole 18 wooden railway sleepers.

About 40 km of the Armenian section of the Yerevan-Baku railway passing through Meghri has been completely dismantled. Journalist Tatul Hakobyan, who visited Meghri in 2016, wrote: "There is nothing left of the 40-kilometer railway. The iron rails and the entire engineering system simply do not exist." Another journalist, Robert Ananyan, confirmed that the rails of the Meghri railway have been dismantled, and the buildings and tunnels are dilapidated. According to David Matevosyan, a former MP from Meghri, the local railway began to be dismantled during Robert Kocharian's presidency in 2003.

In October 2018, the Investigative Committee issued a report stating that, according to a preliminary investigation, the Gafan-Meghri section, transferred to South Caucasus Railway CJSC in 2008 under a concession agreement, was "completely dismantled and plundered" in 2010-2011. Instead of the former railway (in place of the removed rails and supports), there is now a dirt road leading from Megri to the village of Nrnadzor. According to the Armenian media, the rest of the Armenian railway network is also virtually idle.

According to an investigation published by the Armenian Public Television News Service, the railway section was dismantled by order of the Ministry of Defense in 2003, when Serzh Sargsyan was minister, and was sold to the Zangezur Copper-Molybdenum Combine. The investigation revealed that Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Khachaturov had signed an agreement with a company that would receive an appropriate amount for dismantling every 15 meters of the road. The agreement referred to a 30-kilometer section from Meghri to Gafan. A total of 2,000 tons of removed rails were sold. Similarly, the 132-kilometer road from Goradiz to Agbend was dismantled and sold off during the Armenian occupation. The one that Azerbaijan has restored today.

Summing up, the Union of Informed Citizens states that a significant part of the Armenian railway network is in an abandoned state, and the section of the Yerevan-Baku railway passing through Meghri has been completely dismantled.

In the current situation, the only transport for the transit of goods through the territory of Armenia will be horse-drawn vehicles. A country with a difficult terrain, where the construction of highways (let alone railways) requires billions of dollars in investments, cannot ensure the transit of such volumes of goods as will follow after the launch of the agreements reached in Samarkand.

Well, if Mrs. von der Leyen is ready to wait...