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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