Baku on Thursday, once again, rejected Yerevan’s proposal for the delimitation and demarcation of borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan hailed the opening of railway link to Azerbaijan saying the process is “very close” to fruition.

Azerbaijan’s foreign minister, Jeyhun Bayramov on Thursday repeated that Armenia’s proposals were unacceptable adding Baku wants an unconditional start of the demarcation process.

“Armenia, which occupied Azerbaijani lands for 30 years, does not have a legal, political or moral right to set any conditions for the border demarcation,” Bayramov said.

Increasing the level of security and stability along the border and creating a commission to address the border delimitation and demarcation were part of an agreement reached in Sochi in November between the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia who adopted a joint statement.

Armenia has proposed the enhancement of security measures along the border. Yerevan views that such a process can best be achieved if Armenia and Azerbaijan simultaneously withdraw their respective border troops, which, according to the proposal, will be replaced by a peacekeeping mission until the delimitation and demarcation process is complete.

When Azerbaijan voiced its rejection of this proposal last month calling them “preconditions”, Armenia’s foreign minister, Ararat Mirzoyan, said that Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, had agreed to the troop withdrawal proposal during talks in Brussels late last year.

Russia continues to push for an immediate creation of the demarcation task force. Mirzoyan on Thursday said that Yerevan was “100 percent” committed to the Sochi statement, calling a “commitment, which we have assumed.”

Mirzoyan downplayed Bayramov’s Thursday saying that “this is an ongoing process. It’s not as if we proposed something once and they rejected it. There have also been [Azerbaijani] proposals unacceptable to us.”

Undeterred about the matter, Pashinyan claimed Thursday that Armenia and Azerbaijan are “very close” to opening a rail link between the two countries.

Pashinyan confirmed that the rail link issue was the main subject of talks with Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk, who arrived in Armenia on Wednesday with Oleg Belozerov, the head of Russian Railways (RZD) that manages Armenia’s railway company known as the South Caucasus Railways.

The two Russian officials met Wednesday with Armenia’s Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan, who is part of a commission along with Overchuk and Azerbaijan’s deputy prime minister overseeing the process of opening transport links between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

“We are very close to registering the first practical results of the trilateral [Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani] working group on opening regional communication routes,” Pashinyan said, commenting on the talks with Overchuk.

“We are already discussing defining technical specifications and designing and financing [the project] and starting construction,” he added without providing further details.

The planned 28-mile railway will connect Azerbaijan to Nakhichevan through Armenia’s Syunik Province. The cost of the project is estimated at $200 million.

Gregoryan said that Armenia will work with RZD to implement the project, saying that the company manages the SRC and has ample experience in building railways.

Despite hailing the project’s imminent start, Pashinyan did not specify when the actual construction would begin, nor did he elaborate on who will foot the bill. Will it be the Armenian government, which is already tapped and has no such provision included in the 2022 budget? Or, will RZD or international funders step in to fulfill the effort, providing Russia another controlling lever in the region?