According to an Iranian government statement, Arsen Avagian, the new Armenian ambassador in Tehran, made this clear after handing his credentials to Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi on Monday.
“Armenia is ready to raise relations between the two countries to the level of strategic relations,” Raisi’s office quoted Avagian as saying.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry said Avagian told Raisi that he will do his best to help deepen Armenian-Iranian ties. A ministry statement on their conversation made no references to Yerevan’s desire to make those ties “strategic.”
Raisi was cited by his office as noting “potentials for the development of friendly, long-lasting relations between Tehran and Yerevan.” He said that Tehran supports the territorial integrity of states.
Raisi emphasized that support in a January phone call with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian. “In this regard, Tehran supports the sovereignty of Armenia over all territories and roads passing through that country,” he said at the time.
Armenia and Azerbaijan are to reopen their border to commercial and passenger traffic under the terms of a Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped their six-week war for Nagorno-Karabakh in November 2020. The deal specifically commits Yerevan to opening rail and road links between Azerbaijan and its Nakhichevan exclave.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly claimed that it envisages an exterritorial land corridor that would pass through Armenia’s Syunik province bordering Iran. Armenian leaders have dismissed his claims, saying that Azerbaijani citizens and cargo cannot be exempt from Armenian border controls.
Some Iranian officials accused Aliyev last fall of seeking to effectively strip Iran of a common border with Armenia. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian likewise warned that any “changes in the region’s map” are unacceptable to the Islamic Republic.
