Iranian officials, MPs, ambassadors, media outlets and experts launched a coordinated rhetorical campaign against the Zangezur Corridor following the official state visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Azerbaijan. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted a statement on his X account, describing any “redrawing of boundaries as totally unacceptable and a red line for Iran”. The head of Iran’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Ebrahim Azizi, in an interview with the Iranian ISNA news agency reiterated the position of Iran’s Supreme Leader that the Zangezur corridor is a “red line” for Tehran and the Islamic Republic of Iran will respond to any “geopolitical changes”. Mehdi Sobhani claimed that the Zangezur corridor will not be realised, describing the project as “illusions”. Sobhani even talked about some extraterritoriality and Iran’s opposition to it. Iran’s Mehr News Agency published an article with the headline “Why Iran opposes creation of Zangezur corridor?” which mentions several points, only one of which gives some insight into Iranian concerns that the Zangezur corridor will diminish Iran’s geostrategic advantages as part of the Middle Corridor linking China to Europe.
In an interview with Russia’s First Channel in August, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that Armenia’s leadership is not implementing its obligation to provide a communication link via southern Armenia and is sabotaging the opening of regional communications. Lavrov’s remarks caused political hysteria among the Iranian political establishment. Tehran summoned Russia’s diplomatic envoy and expressed its stance that Iran is against geopolitical changes in the region.
WHAT IS THE ZANGEZUR CORRIDOR ?
Provision 9 of the November 2020 trilateral agreement between the leaders of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia, which put an end to the Second Karabakh War, states that Armenia shall provide a land communication link between the mainland of Azerbaijan and its exclave Nakhchivan. Provision 9 envisages that Russia’s FSB border guards shall exercise control over the communication link for goods and people travelling from one part of Azerbaijan to the other via Armenia. It is part of the process of opening up all communication links in the South Caucasus and at the same time part of the peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the normalisation process between Armenia and Turkey. A trilateral working group was established between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia in January 2021 with the aim of implementing Provision 9 of the November 2020 Statement. While Azerbaijan continues rapidly building rail and road links in the liberated territories up to the Armenian border, the lack of action by Yerevan on its own territory further complicates the opening of communications. The Zangezur corridor will be an integral part of the Middle Corridor by allowing the flow of goods coming from China to Europe to pass through the South Caucasus region in huge quantities as well as creating an alternative route to Turkey and the Black Sea and Mediterranean.
Opening regional communication links, particularly the Zangezur corridor, will contribute not only to regional peace and normalisation, but also boost the Middle Corridor’s capacity by introducing alternative routes for goods from China and Central Asia to reach Europe. It will also put an end to Armenia’s self-isolationist policies of the last decades due to its conflicts with neighbours, reintegrating it into the regional economy and involving it in major regional projects.
ANALYSING IRAN’S DISCOURSE AGAINST THE ZANGEZUR CORRIDOR
BORDER CHANGE CLAIM
Iranian official discourse against the Zangezur corridor is based on three main claims: there will be a border change, geopolitical change and, most recently added by the former interim foreign minister Kaani, demographic change. Iranian narratives also describe the Zangezur corridor as a supposed NATO and Turan corridor. Analysing all these claims, it becomes clear that none of them are backed by any factual rationale and fail to reveal the true Iranian agenda against the opening of communications routes in the South Caucasus.
Iran claims that construction of the Zangezur corridor will cut off its border link to Armenia and the Black Sea. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei constantly talks about Iran being against “border changes” in the region. The Iranian discourse, which started with the notion that Iran is against border changes, does not stand scrutiny for the following reasons, however. Over recent decades only two countries have de facto changed internationally recognised borders in the South Caucasus: Armenia by occupying the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, and Russia in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Moreover, Tehran currently engages in Russia’s attempts to redraw Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders by supplying Moscow with weapons.
The Armenian occupation of Azerbaijani lands entailed the de facto annexation of more than 130km of Azerbaijan’s state borders with Iran. The political and military leadership of the Islamic Republic not only tolerated the annexation, they enabled it. Iran conducted trade with the entity illegally created on the occupied Azerbaijani land. Moreover, Iran remains silent on Armenia’s constitution and has never urged Yerevan to amend the constitution to remove its irredentist territorial claims against Azerbaijan, which Tehran would do if it were sincere in its claim to oppose “border changes” in the region. Unlike Armenia, Azerbaijan does not have any official territorial claims against its neighbours in its constitution, parliamentary legislation or national security strategy.
The Zangezur corridor does not mean a change to the Iran-Armenia border, nor is the Zangezur corridor an extraterritorial corridor, contrary to the Iranian and Armenian fake claims. According to the Azerbaijani president’s representative for special assignments, Elchin Amirbekov, Baku is not asking for an extraterritorial corridor but for credible insurance of security for every traveller using the route, taking into account the longstanding enmity towards Azerbaijan in Armenian society. In other words, the Iranian claims that the Zangezur corridor is about border changes or extraterritoriality have no basis whatsoever.
GEOPOLITICAL CHANGE NARRATIVE
Another constantly repeated Iranian discourse is that Tehran is against the geopolitical changes in the region. However, geopolitical shifts and changes have already occurred with Azerbaijan’s restoration of its territorial integrity and sovereignty in 2020 and 2023. Azerbaijan has completely reverted the geopolitical realities and post-1994 status quo, which Iran heavily invested in in order to sustain the Armenian occupation of Azerbaijani lands. The military alliance between Azerbaijan and Turkey has been boosted with the signing of the Shusha Declaration. The strategic partnership between Azerbaijan and Israel has been deepened with the opening of the Azerbaijani embassy in Israel. Azerbaijan’s strategic importance for both Russia and the EU has increased with the war in Ukraine with the emergence of the Middle Corridor and North-South Corridor. The integration of the Turkic States in economic, political and cultural spheres has also accelerated.
The end of the Second Karabakh War cemented Azerbaijan’s rise as the only economic and military power in the South Caucasus. The country is the key actor shaping the region’s economy, security and geopolitics. Azerbaijan’s victory also increased the role of Turkey in the South Caucasus. Ankara has an ally in Baku and strategic partner in Tbilisi, unlike Tehran, which lacks this degree of influence in the region. Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey also work together on energy, security and defence, forming a key platform in regional affairs. In other words, significant geopolitical changes in the region have already occurred and will be completed with a peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan and normalisation between Armenia and Turkey. The Iranian claim that it is against geopolitical changes in the region is weak and does not have solid backing.
In an interview to CNN Turk, Iran’s then acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani introduced a new narrative in Iranian discourse that Tehran is against initiatives for demographic change in the region. This is both an odd and weak argument. During the Armenian occupation of Karabakh, Yerevan and Armenian diaspora organisations engaged in demographic engineering projects, creating settlements for illegal Armenian migrants from Syria, Lebanon and Armenia. The illegal settlements on occupied Azerbaijani land along the border with Iran were not only tolerated by Tehran, but even supported through economic ties such as the sale of Iranian fuel.
NATO TURAN CORRIDOR
Iranian media, experts and even official narratives utilise the descriptions NATO and Turan corridor with regard to the Zangezur communication link or even combine the two terms into NATO-Turani, branding the project a conspiracy against Iran. The then Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, even described it as a project that lays the groundwork for NATO. The chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Ebrahim Azizi, referred to the Zangezur link as a Turan project and even called it a “fake corridor”. By Turan, the Iranian official narrative implies the direct connection between Turkey and Azerbaijan and the Turkic states of Central Asia via the Zangezur corridor. The Iranian narrative about the Zangezur corridor being a project for NATO’s expansion into the South Caucasus is groundless, since the 2020 trilateral agreement envisages Russia’s FSB border guards controlling the route. Calling it a Turan corridor is part of the Iranian regime’s anti Turkic stance. For decades the Islamic Republic has pursued policies to assimilate non-Persian ethnic groups and create a Persian-centric Iranian identity based on Shia religious elements. The policies have not been successful, and clashes of opposing nationalism inside Iran among Persian and non-Persian ethnic groups are on the rise. Iranian media seem to be warning Moscow that siding with Azerbaijan and Turkey is not in the national interests of Russia. As Tehran and Moscow are close to signing a strategic agreement, Iranian media think that remarks about the Zangezur corridor by Russian officials such as Foreign Minister Lavrov damage the national interests of both countries and harm the possibility of the deal becoming reality.
TEHRAN’S FEAR OF GEOECONOMIC AND GEOPOLITICAL IRRELEVANCE
The analysis above shows that the Iranian official discourse and narratives about the Zangezur corridor are absurd and not backed up by viable argumentation. Two main factors are behind Tehran’s Zangezur corridor annoyance: geo-economics and geopolitics. Mohsen Pak-Ayeen, a former diplomat of the Islamic Republic, outlined Iran’s main concern in an op-ed published in October 2021 on the Khamenei.ir website. He argued that construction of the Zangezur corridor would open transit routes for some countries, implying Turkey and Central Asian countries, without them crossing the territorial borders of Iran. Iranian expert Ahmad Kazemi reveals Iran’s main concern about the Zangezur corridor is that Azerbaijan and Turkey will gain an alternative communications route bypassing Iranian soil. In other words, Azerbaijan has had to use Iranian soil to get access to its exclave Nakhchivan over the past three decades because of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. This gave Tehran geopolitical as well as economic leverage over Baku, such as through customs charges. If the Zangezur corridor is opened, Azerbaijanis will not use Iranian territory to get to Nakhchivan. Secondly, Turkey will be able to bypass Iran and use the Zangezur corridor to get to Central Asia, meaning that Turkey will no longer depend on Iranian soil for the annual passage of more than 40,000 trucks in trade with Central Asia’s Turkic countries.
In branding the Zangezur corridor a “NATO-Turani” project Ahmad Kazemi also claims that Central Asian natural gas will be transported directly to Azerbaijan without the current swap deals with Iran. He further claims that if Baku and Ankara were not pursuing a conspiracy against Tehran, they would prefer the corridor to go via Iran, not Armenia. In an op-ed Mehr News agency opposes Russia’s backing of the Zangezur corridor, describing the corridor as an attempt by Baku and Ankara to create a link for the first time among the Turkic world as part of the Middle Corridor between China and Europe. The op-ed argues that creation of the Zangezur corridor will remove Iran from major transit routes, meaning Tehran is against the Middle Corridor bypassing it and going via Armenia. In other words, the Iranian regime is against the Zangezur corridor because it will be one of the key links in the Middle Corridor and will bypass Iran, diminishing Iran’s transit role and leverage over Turkey and Azerbaijan, as well as lessening Armenia’s heavy dependence on Iran. Iranian officials realise that if they lose their last remaining leverage Armenia will not side with Iran as before and Turkish influence will grow even more, as Iran is unable to compete with Turkey on the Armenian market despite the closed land border.
Azerbaijan and Turkey’s ongoing construction of the natural gas pipeline between Nakhchivan and Igdir will reduce Nakhchivan’s dependence on Iran, while the Protocol of Intent on the construction of a railway between the Turkish city of Kars and Nakhchivan alongside the opening of the Zangezur corridor will make Iran irrelevant as a transit country between Azerbaijan, Nakhchivan and Turkey.
The Iranian side’s criticisms of the Zangezur corridor are solely based on two key factors. In geopolitical terms Iran’s aim is to derail peace and normalisation between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Armenia and Turkey. Tehran realises that the Zangezur corridor is a key part of the peace and normalisation process in the region. Armenia’s enmity towards its neighbours has allowed Iran to increase its influence over Yerevan and to use it as a central part of its proxy warfare against Azerbaijan and Turkey in the region. Iranian political experts brand Armenia as a “natural barrier” between Turkey and the Turkic world. The Islamic Republic views Armenia’s irredentist claims against Azerbaijan and Turkey as a central plank in their policy of continuing confrontation and preventing normalisation between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey. Iran’s geopolitical goals cannot be advanced in a peaceful South Caucasus. If the Zangezur corridor is in operation, this will mean that Armenia is normalising relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey and the Turkish-Armenian and Azerbaijani-Armenian borders are open. This scenario is a geopolitical nightmare for Tehran, as it would lose its last leverage as a transit route for Azerbaijan and Turkey, as well as its influence over Armenia. In the long run, Azerbaijani energy would replace Iranian fuel in the Armenian market and Tehran’s inability to compete in a positive environment would make it an irrelevant actor in the region.
In addition to the loss of economic and geopolitical leverage in the region, Iran is concerned about an increase in domestic ethnic tensions and clash of identities inside Iran, fearing that Iran’s marginalised ethnic groups, particularly Iranian Azerbaijanis, might participate in regime change within Iran. Preventing the rise of Azerbaijan, containing Turkey’s influence and keeping Armenia under Iranian influence are central tenets of the Iranian regime’s policies. As in the Middle East, Tehran prefers to maintain a confrontational situation in the South Caucasus. Thus, Iran is against a transport route through Armenia and, more broadly, the peace process and normalisation in the South Caucasus.
