Armenia offers Azerbaijan to start land transportation

2025-12-26

26-12-2025

Armenia offers Azerbaijan to start land cargo transportation on the border between the two countries after the relatively high and uncompetitive preliminary price for transit via “Georgian Railways” was announced.”

This was stated by Armenian Economy Minister Gevorg Papoyan, as reported by Armenian media.

“On one side is the Georgian Railway Company, and on the other side are grain or gasoline importing companies. Naturally, they should negotiate and find the best option for transit prices,” Papoyan said.

Against this background, he said, it is the best time to open the land border between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

“Now is a very good time to open the land border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, so that cargo arriving at the Armenian border by rail can be reloaded from there onto trucks using a multimodal method and transported via the Armenian-Azerbaijani land border. I believe that there are no circumstances in either Armenia or Azerbaijan that would prevent this. I have the impression that business is ready for this,” the Minister of Economy said.

Earlier, regarding the tariffs for freight transportation on Georgian railways, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that if this issue is not resolved, business will begin to look for alternative ways to import and export cargo. In addition, he called on Russia to urgently restore the sections of the railway in Armenia that run to the borders of Azerbaijan and Turkey.

In particular, Pashinyan demands the full restoration of the railway sections from Yerasheg in southwestern Armenia to Nakhichevan, i.e. to the Azerbaijani border, as well as from Akhuriki in western Armenia to the Turkish border. Pashinyan also intends to demand the restoration of the railway section from Ijevan in eastern Armenia to Gazakh in western Azerbaijan from the Russian side.

The Armenian railway transport system is operated by the 100%-owned subsidiary of Russian Railways, South Caucasus Railways. This is provided for in the concession agreement signed between Russian Railways and Armenia in 2008.

Pashinyan says that “if the Russian side encounters difficulties in restoring these railway sections and does not complete the work on time, Armenia may remove them from the Russian concession and restore them with state funds.”

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