Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s press secretary, Nazeli Baghdasaryan, denied media reports that Yerevan plans to transfer the village of Jiliza to Georgia as part of the border delimitation process.
“Any statement, idea, or ‘information’ suggesting an intention, plan, or agreement to transfer any part of the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia to another country cannot by true by its very nature,” she stated on Facebook on April 28. “Therefore, as before, we have denied, deny, and will continue to deny any such publications with similar content, on the grounds that they are fabricated,” she added.
The statement followed reports by several media outlets, including in Georgia, on April 27 that Yerevan would transfer the village of Jiliza, located in Armenia’s Lori Province near the border with Georgia, to Tbilisi, after remarks by Nikol Pashinyan earlier that day on the broader process of border demarcation and delimitation with neighboring countries, including Azerbaijan and Georgia.
Pashinyan, speaking at the event marking the Day of the Border Troops of Armenia’s National Security Service, referred to ongoing border processes, noting progress with Azerbaijan and an agreement on the delimitation and demarcation of a 12-kilometer section of the border.
In that context, he added, “We also have on our agenda the process of finalizing the delimitation of our border with Georgia, and we already have agreements on this with our Georgian partners,” according to the English version of the remarks published by Armenia’s state news agency Armenpress.
Giorgi Tumasyan, a representative of the political initiative “Georgia First” with ethnic Armenian roots, described the media reports claiming the village transfer as “fake news” and “either an accidental or deliberate provocation.”
“This is a classic example of irresponsible journalism, the creation and spread of fake news,” Tumasyan wrote on Facebook, adding, “This is also quite a dangerous thing – talking about negotiations ongoing for decades between two countries on border demarcation-delimitation, [as] there is a commission, and its work and documents are confidential. If you know what is being agreed or not agreed, that is already a problem, because you are not supposed to know it. And no one has said that an agreement has already been reached.”
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