The two men met in the Russian city of Kazan on the sidelines of a of a summit of the BRICS group of major emerging economies.
According to the official Armenian readout of the talks, Pashinian “expressed his satisfaction with the dynamic nature of relations with Iran,” saying they have received new impetus since Pezeshkian took office this summer.
“Nikol Pashinian emphasized that further development of relations with Iran is one of the priorities of the Armenian government,” added the statement.
Pezeshkian’s office quoted Pashinian as saying that “Armenia will continue to expand its good relations with Iran under any circumstances.” It said the Iranian president described Armenia as his country’s “friend and good neighbor.”
Pezeshkian was reported to speak at length about Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas and Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement which is threatening to escalate into an Israeli-Iranian war. He accused the West of supporting “the Zionist regime’s genocide in Gaza and attacks against the Lebanese people.”
The official readouts did not say whether the two leaders discussed Azerbaijan’s continuing demands for an extraterritorial land corridor to its Nakhichevan exclave that would pass through Armenia’s Syunik region bordering Iran. Tehran is strongly opposed to the so-called “Zangezur corridor,” fearing a de facto loss of its common border with Armenia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sparked an Iranian uproar with his August 19 statement accusing Armenia of “sabotaging” a Russian-brokered agreement to build a highway and railway to Nakhichevan. The Iranian Foreign Ministry reportedly summoned Russia’s ambassador in Tehran to warn Moscow against contributing to any “geopolitical changes” in the region.
Paragraph 9 of a Russian-brokered ceasefire deal that stopped the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh requires Yerevan to “guarantee the security of transport links” for Nakhichevan and also stipulates that Russian border guards will “control” the movement of people, vehicles and goods through Syunik.
Armenian officials maintain that this does not allow the border guards to escort traffic to and from the Azerbaijani exclave, let alone be involved in border controls. Pashinian reaffirmed this stance in a speech at the BRICS summit.
“All claims that Armenia somehow agreed that a third party will ensure the security of communications on its sovereign territory or that any document provides for that are not true,” he said.