Economy Minister Gevorg Papoyan said on social media late on Tuesday that Russian-origin wheat was being moved by rail from Russia through Azerbaijan toward Armenia. “Kazakhstani wheat is also on the way and is expected to reach Armenia in the coming days, again via Azerbaijani territory,” he added.
The shipments follow a recent announcement by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev that Baku would lift its ban on the transit of goods to Armenia.
“This fact proves that peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia is no longer on paper but in practice,” Aliyev said during a visit to Kazakhstan on October 21.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and other officials in Yerevan welcomed the announcement. Pashinian has regularly stated that “peace has been established between Armenia and Azerbaijan” as a result of his August 8 agreements with Aliyev brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House.
Earlier, Papoyan clarified that the wheat will enter Armenia via the Georgian railway.
Azerbaijani media reported on Tuesday that 15 wagons carrying more than a thousand tons of grain from Russia were transiting through Azerbaijan and Georgia, bound for the Dalarik station in Armenia.
Late last month, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk said Russia and Azerbaijan had discussed the issue of transiting goods to Armenia, and that Baku had reaffirmed its readiness to allow Russian products to pass through its territory. Overchuk added that Russian Railways was coordinating with regional partners to organize the shipments.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have not used each other’s territories for transit for more than three decades due to a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh that resulted in two major wars.
The trilateral summit in Washington in August resulted in the initialing of an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace agreement and a declaration signed by Trump, Aliyev, and Pashinian, committing Armenia to ensuring “unimpeded connectivity” between mainland Azerbaijan and its Nakhchivan exclave through Armenian territory “with reciprocal benefits for international and intra-state connectivity for the Republic of Armenia.” The United States is to have exclusive rights to what will be called the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).