Reports swirling about the abrupt cancellation of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s planned visit to Armenia on Sunday, the same day he tragically perished in a helicopter crash, have gone unconfirmed or refuted by the Armenian government.
Citing an undisclosed “source,” Russia’s prominent state news agency, TASS, asserted that Raisi had intended to attend a ceremony marking the launch of a road project in Armenia. “The visit was postponed at the last moment,” the report stated.
Raisi had journeyed to the Azerbaijani-Iranian border on Sunday, where he, alongside Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, inaugurated a dam on the Arax River dividing the two nations. Tragically, it was during the return from this event that the helicopter carrying Raisi, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and other officials crashed in a wooded area in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province.
Alphanews.am cited a spokesperson from the Armenian Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures, noting that a joint Armenian-Iranian “event” had been slated for the previous week along a road leading from the Iranian border to Kajaran, a town in Armenia’s Syunik province. However, no explanation was offered for its cancellation.
Last October, the Armenian government awarded a substantial $215 million contract to a consortium comprising two Iranian companies for the overhaul of a 32-kilometer road over the span of three years. The agreement, inked in Yerevan in the presence of Iran’s Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mehrzad Bazrpash, underscored its strategic importance for Tehran.
Azerbaijan’s seizure of Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023 heightened concerns in Yerevan about potential Azerbaijani aggression aimed at establishing a land corridor to the Nakhichevan exclave via Syunik. Iran has consistently cautioned against any efforts to sever its shared border and transport connections with Armenia. Reportedly, Raisi had conveyed to an Azerbaijani official visiting in October that Iran staunchly opposed the corridor sought by Baku.
