Iran “Will Engage in Countermeasures,” to Defend Armenia Mashregh News Warns Azerbaijan

Already entangled in border skirmishes with Taliban forces on its eastern borders, Iran is also facing significant geopolitical change on its northwestern border regions with Armenia, which risk getting severed by the advances of Azerbaijan’s armed forces. For now, Iran’s reactions are limited to warnings to Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, but that may change fast. 

• September 14: “As the second Karabakh war broke out in late September 2020, the Islamic Republic of Iran urged both parties to show restraint, and emphasized the Republic of Azerbaijan’s right to reclaim its occupied territories through negotiation,” Mashregh News wrote, and continued: “It appears Ankara is pressing for the Azerbaijani military’s occupation of the southern parts of the Syunik province of Armenia in order to connect the isolated Nakhchivan exclave to the Republic of Azerbaijan, and thereby create the so-called ‘Zangezur Corridor.’” Quoting unnamed Armenian sources, Mashregh wrote that Azerbaijan’s military advances may sever the land connection between Iran and Armenia. Warning Azerbaijan, Mashregh emphasized: “The Islamic Republic of Iran, which respected the Republic of Azerbaijan’s decision to reclaim its territory, has overtly and on many occasions declared it will abandon its policy of restraint and neutrality and engage in countermeasures if the government in Baku decides to change the geopolitics of the Caucasus and international borders.”  
• September 14: Khorasan Daily wrote: “The new objective of the Republic of Azerbaijan is maximalist, since it wants to usurp the Syunik region of Armenia, or at a very minimum to create the Zangezur Corridor to connect it to Nakhchivan, and thereby to Turkey, which will be resisted by the Islamic Republic.” In a separate article, Khorasan columnist Hamed Rahimpour argued: “If Baku pursues the objective of occupying the Iran-Armenia border regions, it will in practice have full control over Iran’s connections to Armenia, Eurasia, and Europe and can use it as a leverage against Iran … The leader of the revolution has emphasized that international borders must not change … and Ilham Aliyev ought not play with the tail of the lion.” 
• September 14: Hamshahri Daily reported that Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, in a phone conversation with his Azerbaijani counterpart, warned “the Iran-Armenia border is a historical transit route and must be saved as such without change.” 
• September 14: Salar Seyf, an academic, in a tweet claimed Iranian infantry and armored units at the Iran-Armenia border are in a state of alert.  

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