“Aravot” comments on President Serzh Sarkisian’s weekend talks in Tehran with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani. The two men discussed, among other things, the creation of transport corridors that would connect the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea via Georgia and Armenia. The paper says that Iranian leaders have repeatedly voiced support for this idea. “Official Tehran thereby regards Armenia as one of the crucial elements of that corridor,” it says, adding that Rouhani reaffirmed this stance at the meeting with Sarkisian.
As “Zhoghovurd” points out, Rouhani also called for a “solely political” resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and said regional security and stability is essential for Iran. “A spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry made a statement on this subject later on Sunday, saying that they are closely monitoring developments in the region and will not allow the Karabakh conflict to affect the security of the population of Iran’s border regions [close to the conflict zone,]” writes the paper. It criticizes pro-government pundits in Yerevan for drawing “far-reaching conclusions” from those statements and describing them as a stern warning to Azerbaijan.
“Zhoghovurd” cautions that Iranian leaders have repeatedly made such statements before.“So nothing extraordinary was said at the meeting with Serzh Sarkisian,” it says. “Iran is trying to display a balanced and neutral position towards the two neighboring states in line with its national interests and diplomatic etiquette and this euphoria is not comprehensible.”
Lragir.am reacts to the opposition Yelk alliance’s plans to organize public discussions on the wisdom of Armenia’s membership in the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). The pro-Western publication says that economic arguments against that membership, made by some Yelk leaders, are totally meaningless because “being or not being part of the EEU is a military-political issue for Armenia.” It is therefore highly skeptical about the Yelk initiative.
(Tigran Avetisian)