Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian before his election, during a debate on Iranian state television in Tehran. (Credit: Morteza Fakhirnejad/AFP.)
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is traveling to Armenia on Monday for talks on the creation, under U.S. auspices, of a transit corridor near the Iranian border planned as part of the recent peace agreement between Yerevan and Baku.
Pezeshkian left the country for Armenia and then Belarus on a two-day trip, Iranian state television announced, broadcasting footage of the president's departure.
In Yerevan, he will discuss the planned creation of the Zangezur corridor, a transit zone crossing Armenia to connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan enclave — a long-standing demand of Baku but one to which Tehran has long objected.
Under the Baku-Yerevan agreement reached on August 8 in Washington, the United States will receive development rights for this corridor, named the "Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity" (TRIPP.) "The presence of American companies in the region is concerning (...) we will discuss this and share our concerns" with Armenian officials, Pezeshkian told television before his departure.
Iran has long opposed this corridor, fearing it would cut the country off from the Caucasus and potentially bring a hostile foreign presence to its border. In recent days, Iran has warned Armenia against any progress on the project, attributing possible "hegemonic objectives in the Caucasus region" to the United States.
Armenian officials "have assured us that no American force or American security company would be present in Armenia under the pretext of this route," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Monday, quoted by the state-run Irna news agency.
