Pashinyan offered Russia to sell the concession for the railways of Armenia

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has offered Russia to sell the concession management of the republic's railways to one of the countries friendly to Yerevan and Moscow, Sputnik Armenia reports

"In my view, the solution is to have some country that has friendly relations with both Armenia and Russia would simply buy the right to concession management from Moscow… I don't know, for example, Kazakhstan," he said.

According to him, Yerevan is doing everything possible to convince its partners that even though the railways are managed by Russia, they are the property of Armenia.

"Russia, in our perception, does not want and in practice will not create any obstacles to our regional projects," Pashinyan admitted.

In February 2008, Armenia transferred its railway infrastructure to the concession management of the "daughter" of Russian Railways — CJSC "South Caucasus Railway". The term is 30 years with the right to extend for another ten years.

In December last year, the prime minister said that he had asked the Russian side to urgently restore the sections of the railway leading to Azerbaijan and Turkey, we are talking about sections from Yeraskh to Nakhichevan and from the village of Akhurik to the Turkish border. In addition, Pashinyan said, in the near future he will ask the Russian side to restore the railway from Ijevan to the Azerbaijani Gakhaz.

On Thursday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk said that Moscow, at the request of Armenia, is starting negotiations on the restoration of two sections of railways that will provide docking with the roads of Azerbaijan and Turkey.