YEREVAN—Speaking about the prospects of Nagorno Karabakh being integrated into the Russian-led Customs Union, the head of the Armenian parliament’s Standing Committee on Financial and Budgetary Affairs, Gagik Minasyan, hinted that Karabakh may have de facto membership status.
“The Nagorno Karabakh Republic and the Republic of Armenia are states with an extremely high level of integration,” Minasyan said, recalling the Armenian President’s statement that there could never be a customs border between Armenia and Karabakh.
Minasyan, a member of the ruling Republican Party, also drew attention to an important event that took place in December of 2013, when Russian President Vladimir Putin ratified two agreements eliminating all customs duties with the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Additionally, the territories of these two unrecognized states were recognized by Customs Union members Belarus and Kazakhstan as constituent parts of the Customs Union, Minasyan asserted. According to him, this is an important precedent for Nagorno Karabakh.
“The heads of state, who previously stood against Nagorno Karabakh’s accession to the Customs Union, have come to accept the idea. That means, when Armenia joins the Customs Union, Karabakh will automatically become part of the Union, although unrecognized by Kazakhstan and Belarus, as was the case with Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” Minasyan said.