On the ground, only Iran restrains the “appetites” of the dictator of Baku in connection with the desire to occupy the Syunik Province of Armenia. Analyst and Iranologist Vardan Voskanyan said this in an interview with Armenian News-NEWS.am Tuesday.
He explained that there are other countries that are making diplomatic efforts, but only the threat of a military strike by Iran is actually restraining the Azerbaijani president. According to Voskanyan, Iran knows that in case of the opening of the “corridor” passing through Syunik, it may be threatened by the Turkish blockade.
“Iran knows that the processes threatening Armenia in the South Caucasus can also cause serious blows to its interests. The processes aim to push Iran out of this region and reduce Russia’s influence in the South Caucasus to a minimum. Tehran cannot be indifferent to such processes,” Voskanyan said.
According to him, Iran views the presence of the EU civilian monitoring mission in Armenia as a strengthening of NATO’s influence in the South Caucasus, which is why Tehran has said that the problems in the region should be resolved solely between the countries of the region.
The analyst emphasized that Iran realizes as well the danger not only from the point of view of the loss of an alternative road to the north, but also from the point of view of the growth of separatist sentiments in the north if a corridor is created via Armenia.
“Therefore, Iran is ready to take any steps, including military [ones]. The supreme leader of Iran warned the president of Turkey that the Armenian-Iranian border should not be violated, which means that the whole of Iran will work to advance this theory,” explained the Iranologist.
In his assessment, against this backdrop, Armenia makes strange statements, talking about a peace that never happened, does not exist, and will not happen.
“There is no peace agenda between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Baku’s goal is the elimination of Armenia as a state. Therefore, it is necessary to solve the issues of the strengthening of security, including by deepening the relations with Iran,” stressed Vardan Voskanyan.
In his view, large-scale Azerbaijani military operations against Armenia are now unlikely, but Azerbaijan is guided by an easier strategy by making threats or unleashing local military operations on the territory of Armenia to get what it wants.
