Kirants villagers are more uneasy after meeting with Armenia PM, village head says

The proposals we presented were not taken into account, it was the same scenario, the same conversation. After the meeting, the villagers are more uneasy because they thought we were going in order to bring good news. Kamo Shahinyan, the head of Kirants village of Tavush Province, told this to Armenian News-NEWS.am Tuesday, talking about the meeting between Kirants residents and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan Monday.

"Our proposals were the same as we had presented the first time. But there is no change in the situation, everything has remained the same," said Shahinyan, adding that the villagers left the meeting with the PM disappointed and uneasy.

According to the head of Kirants village, despite everything, the people of Tavush continue to keep the road closed, hoping that there will be some change.

Several residents of Kirants, along with village head Kamo Shahinyan, came to Yerevan Monday and met with PM Nikol Pashinyan to discuss the issue of border villages of Tavush. The villagers, however, left the two-hour meeting dissatisfied.

As reported earlier, on April 19, the Armenian and Azerbaijani border delimitation commissions agreed to start border delimitation from Tavush Province of Armenia. The description of the given sections of the border line will be drawn up taking into account the clarification of the coordinates made as a result of geodetic measurements on the site, and this will be worded in a corresponding protocol-description, which must be agreed upon and signed by the two parties before May 15.

The office of the Prime Minister of Armenia had announced that as a result of all this, Azerbaijan will receive 2.5 villages, and Armenia will get a reduction of security risks related to border delimitation. A few hundred meters of the motorway will be changed in the Kirants village section, whereas Voskepar village will not have a motorway problem. After the border delimitation, the armed forces of Armenia and Azerbaijan will withdraw in the area of the four villages, and they will be replaced by the border guards of the two countries.

Residents of Tavush’s border villages have been protesting on the Armenia-Georgia interstate motorway since April 19. They are against the aforesaid version of border delimitation agreed between Armenia and Azerbaijan.