Monday, Vehicles ‘Escorted By Armenian Border Guards’ On Azeri-Controlled Road • Susan Badalian An Azerbaijani checkpoint set up at on the main road conneting Armeia to Iran, September 14, 2021. Armenian border guards have reportedly begun escorting Armenian vehicles driving along an Azerbaijani-controlled section of the main highway that connects Armenia to Iran. The 21-kilometer section is part of contested border areas along Armenia’s Syunik province which were controversially handed over Azerbaijan following last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijani forces set up a checkpoint there on September 12 to check and tax Iranian commercial trucks transporting cargo to and from Armenia. The move caused serious disruptions in Armenian-Iranian trade operations. Officials in Syunik have also accused masked Azerbaijani officers of bullying some Armenian drivers and their passengers at the same section of the road that also connects the Syunik towns of Goris and Kapan. Two Armenian men were detained by Azerbaijani authorities in the area in unclear circumstances on Saturday. Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) said they “deviated” from the highway. Both men were set free late on Sunday night as a result of what the NSS described as joint efforts of Armenian as well as Russian border guards deployed in Syunik. “The Goris-Kapan highway is safe,” an NSS officer said on Monday, answering a call to the security agency’s hotline. “They [the travellers] are escorted right now. So no problems arise at that four-kilometer stretch.” The security escorts began on Sunday morning, according to the NSS. Two Iranian truck drivers were arrested at the Azerbaijani checkpoint last week for allegedly travelling to Nagorno-Karabakh without Baku’s permission. The Iranian Foreign Ministry called for their immediate release on Sunday. Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi discussed the road crisis with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian at a meeting held in Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe on Friday. Pashinian Congratulates Putin On Election Win Russia - A man casts his ballot during parliamentary and local elections at a polling station in St. Petersburg, Russia, September 18, 2021. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on Monday congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Kremlin-backed United Russia party’s “convincing” victory in parliamentary elections held over the weekend. “The election results testify to support shown by citizens of Russia for policies consistently implemented by the country’s political leadership,” Pashinian said in a congratulatory message publicized by his office. He expressed confidence that “close cooperation” between the newly elected State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, and Armenia’s National Assembly will help to “advance the Russian-Armenian alliance.” With 99.7 percent of ballots counted, the Russian Central Election Commission said United Russia, which backs Putin, won 49.84 percent of the vote. Its closest rival, the Communist Party, had 18.95 percent, and the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party received 7.5 percent. United Russia Secretary-General Andrei Turchak said the party expects to control 315 of the Duma's 450 seats, giving it a comfortable two-thirds majority that continues to allow it to change the constitution. The three-day elections were marred by allegations of voting irregularities and ballot tampering. An independent monitoring agency called them "one of the dirtiest" elections in Russian history. Germany said on Monday that the allegations must be taken “seriously and should be clarified” and the European Union denounced the climate of "intimidation" in the run up to the vote. The vote is widely seen as an important part of Putin’s efforts to cement his grip on power ahead of a possible run in the 2024 presidential election, making control of the State Duma key. Transport Corridors ‘Not Discussed’ In Armenian-Azeri Talks • Sargis Harutyunyan Armenia - Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk speaks with journalists during a business forum in Yerevan, . Armenia and Azerbaijan have not discussed possible transport corridors in Russian-mediated talks on restoring economic links between them after last year’s war, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk said on Monday. The Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani governments set up in January a trilateral working group to try to work out practical modalities of opening the Armenian-Azerbaijani border for commercial traffic. The task force co-headed by Overchuk and his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts has met regularly in Moscow since then. A Russian-brokered ceasefire deal that stopped the six-week war in Nagorno-Karabakh last November commits Armenia to opening rail and road links between Azerbaijan and its Nakhichevan exclave. Armenia should be able, for its part, to use Azerbaijani territory as a transit route for cargo shipments to and from Russia and Iran. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly claimed that the deal envisages a permanent land “corridor” that will connect Nakhichevan to the rest of Azerbaijan via Armenia’s Syunik province. He has threatened to forcibly open such a corridor if Yerevan continues to oppose its creation. Armenian leaders have denounced Aliyev’s threats as territorial claims, saying that the truce accord only calls for transport links between the two South Caucasus states. “We don’t have corridors [on the working group’s agenda,]” Overchuk told journalists while attending a Russian-Armenian business forum in Yerevan. He said that no such issue is being discussed by the trilateral group. “We discuss the issue of economic unblocking. The parties have been exchanging views,” added Overchuk. The group’s Armenian co-chair, Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian, said Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian officials have been exploring “possible infrastructure solutions” and a legal framework for customs and other border controls. He did not give any details. “We are very interested in the opening of transport links because we see that as an opportunity to overcome the blockade in which Armenia has been more than 25 years,” Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian told Overchuk later in the day. He said he hopes that the ongoing talks will yield “concrete decisions.” Pashinian Said To Seek Meeting With Turkey’s Erdogan • Heghine Buniatian • Tatevik Sargsian • Nane Sahakian CYPRUS -- Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses the Turkish Cypriot Parliament, in Nicosia, July 19, 2021. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has offered to meet with him for talks on improving Turkish-Armenian relations. Erdogan appeared to make such talks conditional on Armenia agreeing to open a transport corridor that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave. “It is bewildering that on the one hand Pashinian is saying that the Armenian side is not discussing that [corridor] issue and on the other expressing a desire to meet with me,” he said. “If he wants to meet with Tayyip Erdogan then clear steps will have to be taken.” Erdogan said that the offer was communicated to him by Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili. The latter met with Pashinian in Tbilisi on September 8. Pashinian did not explicitly deny making such an offer when he reacted to Erdogan’s remarks through his spokeswoman, Mane Gevorgian, on Monday. “As of now, there have been no contacts between Armenian and Turkish officials, even though the Armenian government is prepared for such contacts,” Gevorgian told the Armenpress news agency. “In the event of such productive work, Armenia will also be ready for meetings at a high and the highest level.” Gevorgian also criticized Erdogan’s calls for the “Nakhichevan corridor,” saying that such statements run counter to efforts to establish “peace and stability and overcome the atmosphere of enmity in the region.” She said that Armenia stands for the opening of all regional transport links. Pashinian spoke on August 27 of “some positive signals” sent by the Turkish government to Yerevan and said his administration is ready to reciprocate them. Erdogan responded by saying that Ankara is open to normalizing Turkish-Armenian relations. But he cited in that context Azerbaijan’s demands for a formal Armenian recognition of Azerbaijani sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh. Pashinian described Erdogan’s statements as encouraging and reiterated his readiness to embark on a dialogue with Ankara hours before flying to Tbilisi on September 8. GEORGIA -- Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili (L) and his Armenian counterpart Nikol Pashinian attend official welcoming ceremony in Tbilisi, September 8, 2021 Armenian opposition leaders and some analysts say Ankara continues to link the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations to a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict favorable to Baku. They say the Turks also want Yerevan to stop campaigning for a greater international recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire. Erdogan expressed hope on Sunday that the “problem between Armenia and Azerbaijan will be overcome through the opening of corridors.” Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev threatened earlier this year to forcibly open a corridor to Nakhichevan through Armenia’s southeastern Syunik province repeatedly described by him as “historical Azerbaijani lands.” Yerevan strongly condemned the threat. A Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement that stopped last year’s war in Karabakh commits Armenia to opening rail and road links between Nakhichevan and the rest of Azerbaijan. Armenia should be able, for its part, to use Azerbaijani territory as a transit route for cargo shipments to and from Russia and Iran. Armenian leaders maintain that the agreement does not call for the creation of a permanent land corridor for Nakhichevan. The Azerbaijani region also borders Turkey. Turkey provided decisive military assistance to Azerbaijan during the six-week war in Karabakh. Armenia says that Turkish military personnel participated in the hostilities on the Azerbaijani side along with thousands of mercenaries recruited in Syria’s Turkish-controlled northern regions. Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2021 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.