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Gagik Mianasyan: Nagorno Karabakh will also be part of Customs Union

Hasmik Dilanyan
Public Radio of Armenia

“The Customs Union is overwhelmingly an economic structure, but today’s circumstances allow us to insist that it has a political component, as well,” Gagik Minasyan, head of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs, told reporters today. He explained that it is connected with the Nagorno Karabakh.

“The Nagorno Karabakh Republic and the Republic of Armenia are states with an extremely high level of integration,” Minasyan said, adding that it’s crucial to decide the issue of Nagorno Karabakh in case Armenia joins the Customs Union.

Gagik Minasyan recalled the Armenian President’s statement that there could never be a customs border between Armenia and Karabakh. He drew attention to an important event that took place at the end of 2013. On December 22 Russian President Vladimir Putin ratified two international agreements, eliminating all customs duties with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In fact, the territories of these two unrecognized states were recognized by Belarus and Kazakhstan as areas of the Customs Union, Minasyan said. According to him, this is an important precedent for Nagorno Karabakh.

“The heads of state, who previously stood against Nagorno Karabakh’s accession to the Customs Union, have actually got used to the idea. That means, when Armenia joins the Customs Union, NKR will automatically become part of the CU, although unrecognized by Kazakhstan and Belarus, as it was the case with Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” Minasyan said.

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