Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan spoke about the “Crossroads of Peace” project during his speech at the “Tbilisi Silk Road Forum.”
He stated that the Crossroads of Peace initiative itself fits into the logic of the Silk Road, and Armenia will be happy to perform a transit function, to lay oil pipelines, power lines, etc. on its territory.
“I am here to state that without peace it will be very difficult to build any road. It is also clear that our region, the Transcaucasia, needs long-term peace,” the Armenian PM said during his speech at the opening of the forum.
He claimed that peaceful coexistence is the reason why the Armenian government has developed the “Crossroads of Peace Project”, which aims to develop communication between Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran and other countries in the region by modernizing and building various road infrastructures, oil lines, and power lines.
“The road itself connects not only countries, cities, it also connects nations of different countries. We know this very well by our own example – the road is open with two of our friends and this in itself indicates that our relationship is of a friendly nature, the roads are closed with our two neighbors and clearly shows the difficulties in relations today. But I’m not here to talk about difficult relations. I am here to state that without peace it will be very difficult to build any road. It is also clear that our region, Transcaucasia, needs a lasting peace. What is peace? It is a situation where countries exist and function with open borders, they are interconnected by economic and cultural ties, they have accumulated knowledge and experience, which they share with each other through dialogue, and this constitutes peace. All this together with open borders, be it economic, cultural or political ties, could not exist without such connecting roads. This is the reason why our government developed the Peace Project, the Crossroads Peace Project, which in our view is one of the most important, and its purpose is to develop communication between Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran and other countries in the region by modernizing and building various road infrastructures, oil lines, power lines,” said Nikol Pashinyan.
Tbilisi is hosting the Silk Road Forum on October 26-27.
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