Armenia economy minister: Arrival of trucks from Iran to Yerevan is currently solved by bypass road

 Officials in charge at the government are engaged in resolving the issue of trucks coming from Iran arriving in  Yerevan. The Minister of Economy, Vahan Kerobyan, on Friday said this in a conversation with reporters at the government of Armenia.

"I believe this issue will be resolved soon. Of course, the [southern] border of the Republic of Armenia starts from Meghri [city], and the Iranian cars have no problems with entering Armenia; they have a problem with reaching [the capital] Yerevan. At the moment, this problem is being solved by a bypass road, but it is not adapted for large trucks," Kerobyan added.

For almost two days now, the Azerbaijani armed forces have closed off the Goris-Kapan interstate motorway’s Shurnukh-Karmrakar section, as well as the section leading from Goris city to Vorotan village. It is about the M2 motorway that connects Armenia with Iran.

The economy minister said that the Armenian government is doing its best to reopen these roads as soon as possible.

But the minister did not say whether he considers these roads now blocked by the Azerbaijanis to be part of the sovereign territory of Armenia. "I am not a connoisseur of such questions. It is necessary to look at what kind of agreements there were. You, too, know very well that some parts of that road were in the territory of [former] Soviet Azerbaijan," he said.

Kerobyan said that the task of providing food to the residents of the currently blockaded Armenian villages were discussed Friday at the Ministry of Economy. It became known Thursday that the Russian border guards had delivered food to the residents of Vorotan village.

As reported earlier, the Azerbaijani soldiers have blocked the Shurnukh-Karmrakar section of the Goris-Kapan motorway as of 11pm Wednesday, and they refuse to reopen it. About four dozen cars on this road section were evacuated Wednesday night.

And the Office of the Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) of Armenia reported that at around 12:20pm on Thursday, the Azerbaijani servicemen had closed off as well the road leading from Goris city to Vorotan village.

Thursday's trilateral—Armenian-Russian-Azerbaijani—respective talks had ended in the evening, but to no avail. The Azerbaijani side still keeps these road sections closed.