As Armenia slowly turns away from its conventional tactical ally, Russia, it is tentatively checking out much deeper collaborations with the similarity France and the United States.
And After That there is Iran.
Tehran and Yerevan have actually taken pleasure in cordial– even warm– relations considering that the early 1990s. That entente now looks poised to establish yet even more, however geopolitics makes this a complex proposal.
The appeal of this advancement is most obvious in the numbers.
As Armenian Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan informed Armenian Public Tv in an interview aired on November 14, trade in between Armenia and Iran is expanding. Where the nations traded $350 million worth of products in 2021, the expectation is that this figure will increase to $1 billion by next year, he stated.
Grigoryan sees this as more than a concern of creating success.
” Financial relations in between the 2 nations are very important from the viewpoint of security,” he stated.
Another interview from a couple of days previously, this time provided by Iran’s freshly designated ambassador to Armenia, Mehdi Sobhani, to independent Yerevan-based news outlet CivilNet, provided more context for that point of view.
Sobhani meant the concept of Iran lowering Armenia’s energy reliance on Russia. In an equally useful offer, the 2 nations concurred in August to extend an existing offer where Armenia supplies Iran with electrical power in return for gas products. This plan has actually remained in location considering that 2009 and was because of end in 2026, however will now be rolled on, in an obviously boosted type, up until a minimum of 2030.
” Thanks to that arrangement, we will have the ability to increase imports of electrical power from Armenia to Iran in exchange for gas, triple and even quadruple it,” Sobhani stated.
While this concept is appealing, Russia can still play the spoiler.
The Iran-Armenia gas pipeline, the extremely instrument that might be utilized to wean Armenia off Moscow’s gas, has belonged to Russian gas giant Gazprom considering that 2015. Russia has precedent in constraining the capacity of this path.
Even as the pipeline was being created, Moscow effectively firmly insisted that its size be restricted to 700 millimeters– less than the initially planned 1,420 millimeters– as a method to make sure no excess volumes of Iranian gas would be offered onward to 3rd nations. This technical repair restricted the pipeline’s volume to 2.3 billion cubic meters annually. Eventually, Gazprom purchased Armenia’s whole gas circulation facilities outright.
It is not just energy that is being traded, though.
To accelerate other human and business exchanges, an important cross-border highway going through Armenia’s southern Syunik area is going through a significant upgrade. In October, the Armenian federal government granted a $215 million agreement to 2 Iranian business– Abad Rahan Pars Iranian International Group and Tounel Sad Ariana– to do the work. As soon as ended up, the roadway will allow drivers to drive from Agarak, on the Iranian border, and continue some 32 kilometers northward throughout mountainous surface over 17 bridges and through 2 tunnels.
The politics is where it starts to get made complex.
Although Iran regularly verified Azerbaijan’s sovereignty over the area of Nagorno-Karabakh, it has however typically appeared to silently back Yerevan’s interests.
This is playing out at present in wrangling over the so-called Zangezur Passage. After the 2nd Karabakh War in 2020, Azerbaijan restored big swathes of area, including its whole frontier with Iran. Baku started speaking once again then of its desire to press ahead with establishing a transport path throughout the extremely southern edge of Armenia– the Zangezur Passage– so regarding bridge its mainland area with its exclave of Nakhchivan.
What Tehran has actually advanced is an option. In early October, Iran began on a bridge that would assist in much faster transit in between mainland Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan through its own area, consequently notionally getting rid of any requirement for an Azerbaijani passage through Armenia.
Iran is running in this scenario out of a position of tactical self-interest. It aspires to avoid a physical passage at its northern periphery that would join the Turkic world and possibly cut off its access to Armenia and points even more north.
In this month’s interview, Sobhani powerfully restated Iran’s opposition to the Zangezur Passage.
” Our position on that matter has actually been stated at such a level that nobody can alter it,” he stated, according to CivilNet’s English translation. “This is the position of the Supreme Leader of our transformation, who has actually mentioned extremely plainly that we do decline and do not endure any border or geopolitical modifications.”
Iranian and Armenian interests diverge, nevertheless, when it pertains to the existence of extra-regional stars in the South Caucasus, consisting of on the topic of mediation with Azerbaijan.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was specific on this point when he just recently mentioned: “The existence of immigrants in the area not just does not resolve the issues however makes complex the scenario.”
Armenia significantly prefers U.S. and EU mediation, however Tehran wants to see matters settled solely by local gamers. Iran has actually appropriately invited a 2021 effort to develop a 3 +3 format for talks that would include the 3 South Caucasus countries– Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia– and the 3 nearby local powers– Russia, Turkey, and Iran.
Numerous conferences have actually currently been kept in this format, most just recently on October 23 in Tehran. However little appears to have actually come of them. (The format remains in any case misnamed considering that it is really 3 +2 as Georgia has actually never ever accepted take part in it)
In other places in his interview, Ambassador Sobhani provided basic words of assistance for the 100,000 approximately ethnic Armenians displaced by Azerbaijan’s September offensive.
” Our company believe the rights of individuals of Karabakh need to be made sure. The rights of everyone from Karabakh need to be made sure. They should have the chance to exercise their rights. This is a truth that nobody, consisting of Azerbaijan, can neglect,” he stated.
Despite The Fact That he did not show that Iran had any specific policy relating to these individuals, the extremely reference of Karabakh drew the ire of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.
“[W] e think about the position of the Iranian Ambassador versus our territorial stability and sovereignty as a justification. We anticipate Iran to avoid such actions, which are improper to the spirit of our relations, along with to take essential actions relating to the viewpoints voiced by the Ambassador,” it stated.
By Lilit Shahverdyan through Eurasianet.org
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