Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev announced that Azerbaijan expects “the route of the Zangezur corridor from Armenia in the coming weeks” in an interview he gave today on Azerbaijani television, according to the Azerbaijani “Trend News” agency.
“Zangezur” is the Azerbaijani name for the area that encompasses Armenia’s southern Syunik region. The “corridor”, as envisaged by Azerbaijan, would be a strip of land under Azerbaijani control running through Syunik that would connect Azerbaijan to Nakhichevan. The corridor would potentially cut off Armenia from Iran, a move that Iran has said that it strongly rejects.
In what appeared to be related to concerns by Iran that the proposed “corridor” would in fact cut off Iran from Armenia, Iran’s President warned Pashinyan again yesterday that Iran would not “tolerate” any changes to the Armenia-Iran border.
Pashinyan’s underlings have denied claims by Aliyev that Pashinyan has already agreed to the “Zangezur corridor”, though Pashinyan himself has not directly addressed the issue. Turkey’s leadership has also reiterated that the corridor is a precondition in the ongoing talks between Pashinyan’s regime and Turkey aimed at “normalization” of Turkish-Armenian relations.
In the abovementioned interview, Aliyev made a string of belligerent statements directed at Armenia and the Armenians of Artsakh. He stated that “there is no Karabakh issue in the process of normalization between Azerbaijan and Armenia,” which is in line with recent statements and actions by the Pashinyan regime.
Aliyev also emphasized that “Armenians living in Karabakh will have no status, independence, or special privileges.”
