Iran’s president visits Armenia for talks on US-backed Azerbaijan corridor

Iran rejects ‘Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity’ (TRIPP), says the beingness of American companies successful the portion would beryllium ‘worrying’.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is visiting Armenia for talks connected a planned corridor linking Azerbaijan adjacent the borderline with his country, days aft Iran said it would artifact the task included successful a United States-brokered peace accord that puts a imaginable Washington beingness connected Iran’s doorstep.

The land corridor, dubbed the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP), is portion of a woody signed earlier this period successful Washington betwixt erstwhile foes Armenia and Azerbaijan.

US President Donald Trump said the woody granted the US exclusive developmental rights to the transport corridor. Washington was besides signing bilateral agreements with some countries to summation practice successful areas similar energy, commercialized and technology, including artificial intelligence.

Before departing for the Armenian superior Yerevan connected Monday, Pezeshkian described the imaginable beingness of American companies successful the portion arsenic “worrying.”

“We volition sermon it [with Armenian officials] and explicit our concerns,” helium told authorities television.

The projected way would link Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave, passing adjacent the Iranian border. Tehran has agelong opposed the planned transit route, besides known arsenic the Zangezur corridor, fearing it would chopped the state disconnected from Armenia and the remainder of the Caucasus portion bringing perchance hostile overseas forces adjacent to its borders.

Since the woody was signed connected August 8, Iranian officials person stepped up warnings to Armenia, saying the task could beryllium portion of a US ploy “to prosecute hegemonic goals successful the Caucasus region”.

On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described it arsenic a “sensitive” issue, saying Tehran’s main interest is that it could “lead to geopolitical changes successful the region”.

“They [Armenian officials] person assured america that nary American forces … oregon American information companies volition beryllium contiguous successful Armenia nether the pretext of this route,” helium told the authoritative IRNA quality agency.

The projected corridor has been hailed arsenic beneficial by different countries successful the portion including Russia, with which Iran has a strategical confederation alongside Armenia.

Ali Akbar Velayati, a apical advisor to Iran’s ultimate leader, said Tehran would artifact the inaugural “with oregon without Russia”.

Trump “thinks the Caucasus is simply a portion of existent property helium tin lease for 99 years”, Velayati told state-affiliated Tasnim News soon aft the woody was signed, adding that the country would go “a graveyard for Trump’s mercenaries”.

Moscow cautiously welcomed the deal, saying that it supported efforts to beforehand stableness and prosperity successful the region. Similarly to Iran, however, it warned against extracurricular intervention, arguing that lasting solutions should beryllium developed by countries successful the region.

Armenia and Azerbaijan person fought a bid of wars since the precocious 1980s erstwhile Nagorno-Karabakh, a portion successful Azerbaijan that had a mostly taste Armenian colonisation astatine the time, broke distant from Azerbaijan with enactment from Armenia. Azerbaijan Baku took power of the territory successful a subject cognition successful 2023, starring to an exodus of the taste Armenian population.

Armenia past year agreed to instrumentality respective villages to Azerbaijan in what Baku described arsenic a “long-awaited historical event”.

Source:

Al Jazeera and quality agencies