“Pashinian’s acceptance of our invitation was an important step,” Erdogan was reported to tell journalists after wrapping up his latest visit to Baku. “Mr. Pashinian attended our ceremony, overcoming many obstacles emanating from his country’s opposition.”
Armenian opposition leaders condemned Pashinian’s presence at the inauguration ceremony held after Erdogan’s reelection and accused him of humiliating Armenia. They argue that Ankara continues to fully support Azerbaijan and make the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations conditional on Yerevan meeting Baku’s key demands.
One of those demands is the opening of an exterritorial corridor passing through Armenia’s Syunik province, which also borders Iran. Tehran is strongly opposed to the corridor, having repeatedly warned against attempts to strip the Islamic Republic of the common border and transport links with Armenia.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei emphasized this stance when he met with Erdogan in Tehran last July.
“Iran’s approach to this issue disappoints us and Azerbaijan,” Erdogan said on Wednesday. “I want us to overcome that problem soon.”
The Turkish leader claimed that unlike Tehran, Yerevan does not object to the idea of the “Zangezur corridor” which he discussed with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev during his trip to Baku.
Pashinian’s government regularly rejects Azerbaijani demands for such a corridor and says it can only agree to conventional transport links between Armenia and Azerbaijan. It has specifically made clear that Azerbaijani citizens and cargo passing through Syunik cannot be exempt from Armenian border controls.
Pashinian and Aliyev openly argued about the matter during a Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) summit in Moscow on May 25. Nevertheless, the deputy prime ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan as well as Russia reportedly made major progress on practical modalities of a rail link between Nakhichevan and the rest of Azerbaijan during a subsequent meeting held in the Russian capital.
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk met with Pashinian and his Armenian opposite number, Mher Grigorian, in Yerevan on Wednesday for further discussions on the thorny issue. An Armenian government statement said they concentrated on the “restoration of railway communication” and “border and customs controls based on the sovereignty and equal jurisdiction of the parties.” It did not elaborate.
