Russia's state-owned railway monopoly Russian Railways (RZhD) runs the network under a 30-year management contract signed with Yerevan in 2008. Pashinian repeatedly urged it late last year to quickly restore its sections leading to the Azerbaijani and Turkish borders. He said the Armenian government is ready to repair them on its own if the Russian’s are unable or unwilling to do that.
Pashinian appeared to have gone farther in an interview with state television aired late on Tuesday. He indicated that the Russian management of the Armenian railway discourages Turkey and Azerbaijan from using a much larger section of Armenian territory for transit purposes. He pointed to a planned railway that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave and Turkey through Armenia’s Syunik province.
“It is obvious that the railway will enter [the Syunik town of] Meghri from Zangelan and from Meghri it will enter Nakhichevan, that is, Ordubad,” he said. “In the international context, it is very important how this railway will continue. Now there are two competing options.”
Yerevan wants it to link up with Turkey via other Armenian regions, rather than directly. However, Ankara officially started last August the construction of a railway that will run from the eastern Turkish city of Kars to Nakhichevan bypassing Armenia.
“Here we see that in the international context the fact that this section of the railway is under Russian control is being used to present the Kars-Dilicu route in a more favorable light, and this is a problem for us,” Pashinian said, adding that Yerevan wants to discuss a solution to it with Moscow.
“We must find a solution and we must find that solution in a friendly, fraternal logic,” he said in comments made the day after his talks with U.S. Vice President JD Vance.
Pashinian did not clarify whether this means he could try to have the management contract with RZD terminated.
Russia already seems concerned with Pashinian’s controversial decision last year to give the United States exclusive rights to the transit corridor through Syunik to be named after President Donald Trump. Analysts see the controversial arrangement as another blow to Russian presence in Armenia.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said late last month that Moscow remains interested in having a stake in the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP). Armenian officials have essentially ruled out such a possibility.