Azerbaijan said that when crossing roads in Armenia citizens of Azerbaijan may have fears related to personal contact with Armenian border guards and customs officers, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told Public Channel of Armenia on Friday, referring to his statement yesterday that Yerevan will soon submit a new, back-up proposal to open the roads.

"We submitted our proposal in December 2021, now we are going to submit a simplified version of it as a proposal. If we are going down the path of serving the peace agenda in the region, then saying that Armenians and Azerbaijanis should not communicate with each other is not so true. We need to return to the simplest option: the border of Azerbaijan is controlled by servants of that country, and Armenia by servants of Armenia.

I suggested that if the issue is not resolved, let us delegate operators. Operators from our side can be Russians. If this is not accepted either, we will return to the first option. We can also ask international partners to organize training sessions for our customs officers and border guards working at these checkpoints. Not to mention the fact that in the 21st century, much can be done electronically. If it is really a communication issue for Azerbaijan, and not a reason for escalation, the issue is practically solved," Pashinyan said.

According to him, it has been agreed in Brussels that the process of restoring the railroad begins. "When I was about to make a post on my Facebook page, I checked my text with the other parties involved and asked if I understood the agreement correctly, because I have to go out and publish it. I got confirmation that this was exactly the agreement that was in place. And when it was necessary to give this text an official form, Baku refused to do that", the head of the government said.

The PM said that Armenia is for all the routes. "Let's say that we have reached an agreement on legal regulations and we have no problems with the routes. I have no problem with any route, as long as everything is technically feasible, of course. No one could be more interested in the best, most convenient and shortest route that will be available and passable within 12 months. We never said we would never agree to any route.

After all, this road will be built at the expense of Armenia, and if there is no traffic on it, if it does not bring income, it will turn out that we have wasted this money. Armenia is interested in transporting cargo by both road and rail, so that it would bring much income to the country.

May be the problem is that Azerbaijan does not want Armenia to receive income? Maybe Baku thinks that the issue should be solved in such a way that Armenia stays in the blockade," the Prime Minister said.