Tuesday,
Khamenei Warns Against Attempts To ‘Block’ Armenian-Iranian Border
Iran - Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei addresses university students, April 26, 2022.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned against attempts to “block”
Armenia’s border with his country when he met with Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan in Tehran on Tuesday.
Erdogan travelled to the Iranian capital for a trilateral meeting with his
Iranian and Russian counterparts on the conflict in Syria. The conflict was
reportedly the main focus of his conversation with Khamenei.
Khamenei, who has the final say on key state policies, also brought up the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict at the meeting. According to Iranian news agencies, he
“expressed his satisfaction with Nagorno-Karabakh’s return to Azerbaijan” as a
result of the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
He also said: “If there is an effort to block the border between Iran and
Armenia, the Islamic Republic will oppose it because this border has been a
communication route for thousands of years.”
The Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the war in Nagorno-Karabakh commits
Armenia to opening rail and road links between Azerbaijan and its Nakhichevan
exclave. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has claimed that it calls for an
exterritorial land corridor that would pass through Syunik, the sole Armenian
province bordering Iran.
Iran - Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei meets with Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, .
Turkish leaders and Erdogan in particular regularly echo Aliyev’s demands for
the “Zangezur corridor.”
Armenia has rejected the demands, saying that Azerbaijani citizens and cargo
cannot be exempt from Armenian border controls.
Tehran has effectively sided with Yerevan on the issue, repeatedly voicing
support for Armenian sovereignty over transit roads passing through Armenia. Ali
Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reaffirmed
this stance during a July 7 visit to the Armenian capital.
Last October, an influential Iranian cleric accused Aliyev of trying to “cut
Iran’s access to Armenia.”
While in Tehran, Erdogan also held separate talks with Russian President
Vladimir Putin. The latter mentioned “the settlement of the Karabakh problem” in
his opening remarks at the talks.
Russia deployed soldiers and border guards to Syunik during and after the 2020
war to help the Armenian military defend the province against possible
Azerbaijani attacks.
Visiting Yerevan last month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted
that Armenia will control the planned road and railway that will connect
Nakhichevan to the rest of Azerbaijan. Lavrov said the Armenian side will only
simplify border crossing procedures.
Yerevan Reassures Baku Over Troop Withdrawal From Karabakh
• Nane Sahakian
ARMENIA -- An Armenian soldier stands guard atop a hill near Charektar village,
November 25, 2020
Armenia will complete the withdrawal of its troops from Nagorno-Karabakh in
September, a senior Armenian official said on Tuesday following fresh complaints
voiced by Azerbaijan’s leaders.
“Due to the [2020] war, a number of units of Armenia’s Armed Forces entered
Nagorno-Karabakh to help its Defense Army,” Armen Grigorian, the secretary of
Armenia’s Security Council, told the Armenpress news agency. “They have been
returning to the Republic of Armenia since the ceasefire took effect [in
November 2020.]”
“This process is close to completion and will end in September,” he said. “As
for the Defense Army, it has been in Nagorno-Karabakh and will remain there.”
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev claimed last Friday that Armenia still has
troops in Karabakh in breach of the ceasefire accord brokered by Russia. He said
a senior Russian military official assured Baku early this year that the
Armenian troop withdrawal will be completed by June.
“It’s already the middle of July and the issue has not been resolved,”
complained Aliyev.
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov apparently raised the matter with
his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan when they met in Tbilisi on Saturday.
According to the Foreign Ministry in Baku, Bayramov called for a full
implementation of Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements, singling out “the withdrawal
of Armenian forces from Azerbaijani territory.”
Domestic critics of the Armenian government deplored Grigorian’s announcement,
saying that Yerevan is continuing to appease Baku at all costs.
“Thus the Armenian authorities are continuing to duly comply with all demands
and preconditions of Aliyev and the Turkish authorities,” wrote Gegham Manukian,
an opposition parliamentarian.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s administration, Manukian claimed, has made
clear that Karabakh will be left “unprotected.”
Grigorian downplayed security implications of the troop withdrawal, arguing that
Karabakh will retain its armed forces and will also be protected by Russian
peacekeeping forces deployed there following the 2020 war.
“The peacekeeping forces are of key importance in guaranteeing the security of
Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenians,” said the official.
Russia, Armenia ‘Tackling External Threats’
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian meets Sergei Naryshkin, head of
Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service Sergey, Yerevan, .
Armenian and Russian security services are working together to neutralize common
“external threats” facing their countries, the head of Russia’s Foreign
Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergei Naryshkin, said at the end of a visit to
Yerevan late on Monday.
Naryshkin praised the current state of Russian-Armenian relations after holding
talks with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Armen Abazian, the head of
Armenia’s National Security Service.
“I must say that cooperation of our countries is developing positively in the
economic, military-political and humanitarian areas,” he told Russian media
outlets afterwards. “Interaction between special services is part of that
cooperation, and I obviously discussed with my [Armenian] counterpart exchange
of intelligence information, joint actions for the purpose of identifying and
forestalling a whole range of external threats to Russia and Armenia.”
“Our consultations will continue. We are drawing up a plan of joint work for the
coming years,” he said.
Naryshkin did not specify those threats. But he did accuse “liberal-totalitarian
regimes in the West” of trying to destabilize various parts of the world,
including Ukraine, to preserve what he called an “unjust” world order which is
crumbling now.
Armenia has refrained from publicly criticizing the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The South Caucasus state has long maintained close military, political and
economic ties with Russia. Its heavy dependence on Moscow for defense and
security deepened further after the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Pashinian met Naryshkin three days after receiving William Burns, the director
of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. The Armenian government reported few
details of those talks.
The Russian intelligence chief insisted on Monday that his visit to Armenia is
“not connected” with Burns’s surprise trip. Washington has declined to comment
on the trip.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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