Sona Hakobyan
Public Radio of Armenia
The residents of 16 villages at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border have been “blockaded” for over three months. The situation is a consequence of the shelling from the Azerbaijani side on October 22, which left one Armenian soldier killed and several others wounded.
“Despite the security guarantees, the Azerbaijani side has on many occasions violated the rules of the ceasefire,” said Suren Darbinyan, Head of the International Military Cooperation Agency of the Department of Defense Policy at the Ministry of Defense.
“The Azerbaijani side has violated the agreements reached on the international level. It’s no secret that the Armenian side has a greater positional advantage to punish the rival, but the Armenian side does not resort to such actions,” he said.
The adversary violated the ceasefire about 1,600 times in the direction of Tavush last year, representative of the Operative Department of the General Staff of RA Armed Forces Andranik Mkrtumyan told reporters today. He added that the Armenian side has returned fire only in half of the cases.
“This does not mean we are afraid of opening response fire. We simply try to do this in extreme cases,” he said.
The Paravakar-Vazashen highway has been closed for three months because of the ceasefire violations, and is used only in cases of extreme necessity, head of the Transport and Road Construction Department of the Tavush Governor’s Office, said.
As the two alternative roads are in a poor condition, construction of a new highway has started. The road will be safe in all respects, said Alexander Bakhtamyan, Director of the Transport Project Implementation Unit of the Ministry of transport and Communication.
“The total length of the road will be 3km 188m with the width of 6-7m,” he said, assuring that all safety measures will be ensured.
The new road is expected to be commissioned in June; 460 mln AMD has been provided for the implementation of the project.
