He again claimed that it discourages Turkey and Azerbaijan from using a much larger section of Armenian territory for transit purposes in the near future.
“Due to Russia's management of the railway, we are losing our strategic position and our competitive advantage,” he told reporters. “The solution I envision is for a country that has friendly relations with both Russia and Armenia to simply purchase the concessionary management rights from Russia.”
He suggested that Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates or Qatar might be interested in managing the Armenian railway network.
Russia's state-owned railway monopoly Russian Railways (RZhD) runs the network under a 30-year management contract signed with Yerevan in 2008. Pashinian first called into question this arrangement in televised comments on Tuesday.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance visited Yerevan and met with Pashinian on Monday for talks focused on the planned opening of a U.S.-administered transit corridor that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave as well as Turkey via Armenia’s Syunik region. Analysts see the controversial arrangement as another blow to Russian presence in Armenia.