YEREVAN. - Turkey and Azerbaijan protest against the highway passage through the territory of Armenia, said the head of Armenian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Gagik Minasyan on Wednesday.

The approach of Azerbaijan and Turkey is considered contrary to the principles of the organization by the rest of the members, he added.

Construction of the highway around Black Sea is in design stage. The memorandum of mutual understanding in regard to the construction of Black Sea ring highway was signed in Belgrade on April 19, 2007.

According to preliminary estimates, highway’s length will exceed 7.1 thousand kilometers. It will pass through Istanbul, Batumi, Novorossiysk, Taganrog, Mariupol, Odessa, Chisinau, Bucharest, Kiev and Alexandropoulos.