Economist Tatul Manaseryan, founder of “Alternative” research center in my opinion, if Armenia negotiates with Turkey in the direction of re-operating the Gyumri-Kars railway, it should look a little further. According to him, it is not necessary to take some recent episode and announce that he wants to start and use that chicken.

“Armenia should see everything from a broad point of view. Is Turkey able to provide Armenia with an outlet to the Black Sea further by operating that section, or is it just a small section, and the rest will simply remain at Turkey’s disposal?”

Turkey is bound by 3 international conventions, which were ratified by the Turkish Parliament, and also by the Armenian Parliament, after many of my urgings, by which we can set a condition before Turkey.” 168.amTatul Manaseryan said in a conversation with , referring to the recent meeting of the delegations of Armenia and Turkey in Kars, during which the commissioning of the Gyumri-Kars railway was discussed.

According to the economist, the problem is that with all the conventions ratified by the Turkish Parliament, there is one general requirement: those who have access to the sea are obliged to provide such access to those countries and states that are considered landlocked, that is, they do not have access to the sea.

“According to those conventions, this process should be carried out by the landlocked country completely free of charge. In other words, we are transporting cargo through the territory of Georgia today, it violates international conventions, because Georgia has also ratified that convention, and it is stated in them that it should be provided free of charge, while Georgia takes transit money from us.

Here are the norms of elementary economic diplomacy, which the political diplomacy of Armenia and the political elite in general must master in order for the negotiations to be effective,” added Tatul Manaseryan.

According to our interlocutor, the steps he mentioned are to enable Armenia to gain its political independence, turn it into economic independence and use communications.

To the question, taking into account all the political processes, how interested is Turkey in launching the Gyumri-Kars railway today, the economist answered.

“Turkey is interested, first of all, in the first circumstance: that the eastern provinces and regions of Turkey develop as much as possible. The next circumstance is that Turkey has to show the world community that it is a civilized country and in this case it can do it thanks to the normalization of relations with Armenia. Thirdly, with this, Turkey can take a certain part in the positive development of processes in the region and lay the foundation for impartiality in the future, if it does not push forward conditions or preconditions.

Let’s remind that on April 28, the meeting of the Armenia-Turkey joint working group for the restoration and operation of the Gyumri-Kars railway took place in Kars. In the context of the expansion of transport communications in the region, the parties emphasized the importance of the early launch of the Gyumri-Kars railway. The RA Foreign Ministry issued an official message about this.

We should also remind that the Gyumri-Kars railway was closed in 1993, when the Armenian side was achieving success in the first Artsakh war by liberating the Armenian territories. Turkey stopped railway works in solidarity with Azerbaijan.

Years later, in 2005, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia signed an agreement on the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway bypassing Armenia. On October 30, 2017, the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway with a total length of 826 km was inaugurated.

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