ArmInfo. With the support of the West and Iran, Armenia managed to make adjustments to the "corridor" logic promoted by Azerbaijan since the signing of the tripartite statement of November 9, 2020. A similar opinion was expressed to ArmInfo by head of chairman of the "Free Citizen" Civic Initiatives Support Centre, political analyst Hovsep Khurshudyan.
"Initially, I was convinced that Russia, let's say, was not at all against this logic, in fact promising Aliyev a green corridor through the territory of Armenia. However, it is already clear that the "simplified regime" of land communication between Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan, the already agreed railway communications between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the finalization of other issues of this case, without any doubt, provides for the recognition of Armenian sovereignty. And there are no other interpretations here and cannot be," he stressed.
In the analyst's opinion, the change of approaches from corridor to sovereign ones indicates that the Russian Federation is far from succeeding in everything that it initially plans to implement in the South Caucasus. The reason for this is the interests, respectively, the position of the EU and Iran. Meanwhile, from the very beginning, it was in Moscow's interests to provide Azerbaijan with a corridor through Armenia, which would be under its full border control. In accordance with the same statement of November 9th.
According to his estimates, initially the Armenian customs control on the territory of the "corridor" was not envisaged at all. And Azerbaijani vehicles were supposed to move through the territory of Armenia exclusively accompanied by Russian border guards. However, everything changed with unequivocal statements by the US, the EU and the Russian Federation itself, according to which the deblockade of communications would take place, taking into account the sovereignty of the participating states. "It is clear that Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation do not like all this. But these are the new geopolitical realities. Since the fall of 2020, much has changed. Including in our region. And the undisguised interest of the West and Iran in the Syunik region of Armenia is evidenced by the at least regular visits of EU ambassadors and US ambassadors there. Moreover, Iran opens a consulate in Meghri. So the situation has already changed and continues to change further," the analyst concluded.