Customs Checkpoints to be Opened at the Border with Karabakh under the Customs Union

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has provided the “Union of Informed Citizens” NGO with Armenia’s preliminary membership treaty into the Eurasian Economic Union. Earlier, the Ministry refused to provide the documents, in connection to the NGO applying to the Administrative Court.

The NGO has sent the preliminary treaty to Epress.am, where the Appendix 2, seventh item clearly states that the Customs Union’s Customs Code has to add the words “Republic of Armenia,” basically meaning that Nagorno-Karabakh will not be a part of the Customs Union.

“The CU’s Customs Code’s 95th article, second section states that a customs control will be implemented on those products (regarding automobiles) entering the customs border. In the same code’s 97th article, first section directly states that “the lines of customs control are at those points, where products cross the custom border…” Thus, NKR is outside of the Customs Union’s border. Therefore, those places, among the Eurasian Economic Union’s (EEU) territory where roads pass through and products are moved from Armenia to Artsakh (Karabakh) are supposed to be the customs line (customs checkpoints),” said the NGO’s distributed release.

According to the NGO’s representative, Daniel Ioanissyan, the preliminary treaty states that the customs checkpoints will be created in Kashatagh, Lachin, and other roads going to Karabakh. Imported products from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia with have relatively high tariffs, in accordance to the Eurasian Economic Union. According to the circulating news, Armenia plans to sign this treaty on October 10, and will go into effect on January 1(2015).

To recall, during an earlier conversation with journalists, Minister of Economy Karen Chshmarityan, assured that after entering the Customs Union Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh will not have an customs checkpoints. He noted that, products manufactured in NKR will continue to freely circulate. Many products are freely circulated today, due to “rebranding” differentiating them as product from Armenia.