Armenian PM rules out surrender of Tavush villages to Azerbaijan

YEREVAN, March 12. /ARKA/. There has never been and cannot be any discussion about surrendering villages in Tavush region to Azerbaijan, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev said on Saturday that Azerbaijan demands the 'immediate return' of four villages 'under the occupation of Armenia.'.

The four villages are all located along the border between Armenia’s northeastern Tavush region and Azerbaijan’s northwestern Gazakh district.

Pashinyan emphasized today that there have never been villages with those names voiced in the Azerbaijani mass media in the territory of Armenia neither during the Soviet era nor after it.

Earlier, the office of Armenian Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan, who chairs the Armenian border delimitation commission, said that Azerbaijan refuses to recognize that it occupied the territories of 31 settlements in Armenia's Tavush in early 190s and at the same time demands the return of 4 villages.

These territories claimed by Azerbaijan are located in Tavush region and are mostly uninhabited, however, an interstate road to Georgia passes near Nerkin Voskepar. -0-