The Iranian factor: Because of “Zangezur corridor”, Iran and Armenia to lose direct connection

The Iranian factor has emerged in the dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the “Zangezur corridor”, Kommersant writes.

Influential Iranian media reported that Tehran “took diplomatic steps” to convey its overwhelmingly negative attitude to the project to Moscow, which actively supports it along with Baku.

Tehran is afraid of losing the connection with its ally, Armenia, because the corridor, which should pass through the territory of Armenia, implies extraterritorial control. Meanwhile, Baku is sure that Iran’s demands are purely economic in nature: Tehran wants to build a corridor along its banks of the Araks River.

Western and Iranian media, including The Guardian and Tasnim, evaluated the meeting with the Russian ambassador at Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an unequivocal confirmation of the freezing of relations between Moscow and Tehran over the “Zangezur corridor”. “Azerbaijan offers unblocking with a special regime for one road. Russia demands its participation, while Iran is against all this. Negotiations are underway in this difficult situation,” Farhad Mammadov, an Azerbaijani political scientist, told Kommersant.

In a conversation with the Iranian Mehr news agency, Morteza Nasserian, an expert at the Iran’s Construction and Development of Transportation Infrastructures Company, said, “The opening of the corridor under the control of Baku may eventually lead to the fact that Iran will lose its direct connection with the neighboring republic, i.e., Armenia.”