Commenting on possible Armenian-Azerbaijani transport links, the Iranian Foreign Ministry repeated on Monday Tehran’s warnings against the presence of “extra-regional” powers in the South Caucasus.
“Rumors about the participation of extra-regional countries were rejected by regional actors,” the ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, was quoted by the ISNA news agency as saying. “However, Iran is closely monitoring this issue and is in close contact with both countries.”
Echoing regular statements by Iranian leaders, Baghaei rejected any arrangement that would change Armenia’s borders or regional “geopolitics.” He thus reaffirmed Iran’s strong opposition an extraterritorial land corridor to Nakhichevan sought by Azerbaijan as well as Turkey.
A top adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed over the weekend that the United States is behind the Azerbaijani demands for the so-called “Zangezur corridor.”
“The main goal is to weaken the Resistance Axis, sever Iran’s link with the Caucasus, and impose a land blockade on Iran and Russia in the region’s south,” Ali Akbar Velayati said in a speech cited by another Iranian news agency, Tasnim.
“This project is not only part of America’s strategy to shift pressure from Ukraine to the Caucasus but is also supported by NATO and certain pan-Turkist movements,” Velayati said, adding that Iran will thwart it with its “policy of active prevention, rather than passive reaction.”
Speaking at a July 16 news conference, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian confirmed that the U.S. has suggested that the transit of people and cargo through Syunik be administered by a U.S. company. He signaled readiness to accept such an arrangement which is understood to involve a 100-year U.S. lease on the Syunik corridor. Pashinian and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian as well as senior Armenian and Iranian security officials spoke by phone in the following days.
The Russian Foreign Ministry criticized the U.S. proposal on July 24, saying that it is part of the West’s continuing efforts to sideline Russia and Iran. The criticism came as Pashinian met with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin on the sidelines of a conference held in Siberia.
Just hours after those talks, a senior lawmaker from Armenia’s ruling party said that Yerevan has rejected the U.S. offer to lease the Armenian transit routes for Nakhichevan “because we saw a danger of ceding our sovereignty there.”
