Ali Akbar Ahmadian, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, arrived in the Armenian capital the previous night from Baku where met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. The meeting took place the day after Aliyev renewed his threats to forcibly open a land corridor to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave through Syunik, the only Armenian province bordering Iran. Official readouts of it did not mention the issue.
According to the Armenian government’s press office, Pashinian and Ahmadian discussed, among other things, Yerevan’s “Crossroads of Peace” project designed to serve as a blueprint for opening the Armenian-Azerbaijani border to travel and commerce. The project says that Armenia and Azerbaijan should have full control of transport infrastructure inside each other’s territory.
“Ali Akbar Ahmadian noted that Iran supports the implementation of the project based on the principles enshrined in it,” the office said in a statement.
Baku insists on an extraterritorial corridor that would exempt people and cargo transported to and from Nakhichevan through Syunik from Armenian border checks. Tehran is strongly opposed to the so-called “Zangezur corridor.” It has repeatedly warned against attempts to strip it of transport links or the common border with Armenia.
The Iranian Mehr news agency reported that during a separate meeting with his Armenian opposite number, Armen Grigorian, held earlier on Thursday Ahmadian reaffirmed his country’s opposition to “any geopolitical changes in the region.” It said he also stated that “nothing can undermine or change” Armenian-Iranian relations.
The Iranian official travelled to Baku and Yerevan amid what many in Armenia see as a growing threat of an Azerbaijani invasion aimed at opening the corridor.
“All the indications are that Azerbaijan is preparing for war,” said Sergei Melkonian, an analyst with the APRI Armenia think-tank.
“Iran is trying to use all means at its disposal to prevent that attack and avoid the dilemma of intervening or not intervening,” Melkonian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
He suggested that Tehran is hamstrung by a lack of a bilateral defense agreement with Yerevan. The Armenian government “lacks the political to cooperate with Iran in the military field,” he said.
Pashinian was cited by his press office as telling Ahmadian that Armenia and Iran have common “natural interests” and that his government remains committed to deepening bilateral ties “in all directions.”