Yerevan fails to recognize the importance of listening to Azerbaijan

The tongue-tied speaker of the Armenian Parliament, Alen Simonyan, tried to explain the existence of revanchism in his country. It turned out, as always, clumsy and funny.

Simonyan stated that Armenians have no desire for revanchism, and that Azerbaijanis invented this notion. According to her, in Armenia, people only dream of peace. Speaker Simonyan views the issue of the Zangezur corridor as the "greatest revenge." She explains it like this: by demanding a road through Zangezur, Azerbaijan "instills a kind of revanchism that the Armenian people do not have." So, by demanding that Armenia restore the road to Nakhchivan, are we provoking base instincts among Armenians? An interesting approach to the issue. Purely Armenian.

In any case, the neighbors can relax - Azerbaijan is already building a road to Nakhchivan. The opening of the road to NAR through Iran will to some extent remove the need for active pressure on Yerevan in order to force it to fulfill its obligations. But one should not think that Azerbaijan intends to abandon its demands altogether. Although this is not the main thing. The main thing that Yerevan should think about is that Iran will receive dividends from transit, and Armenia will once again be left with a broken trough. During the time that the Armenian side is engaged in demagogic chatter and blackmail, the road through Meghri could have already been restored and would have brought Armenia out of isolation, because this would have been followed by the unblocking of other communications, as well as the opening of the border by Turkiye. But Armenia has made its choice, and, as always, the wrong one. Another project of regional importance bypasses it. And this is the last real project in which Armenia could participate. She missed the previous real projects because of the aggressive policy. The Zangezur corridor was the last opportunity for it to integrate into regional transit. Other projects where her name appears are unrealistic due to geopolitical conditions and high costs that no one wants to bear. And most importantly, due to the absence of Azerbaijan in them. It has long been noticed that projects in which Baku does not participate go very hard, or remain only on paper. And there is no mystery here.

If postponing the issue of the Zangezur corridor for now will somehow help the "humanization" of Armenian society (as follows from Simonyan's words), then we hasten to please our neighbors. By the end of next year, the automotive segment of communications connecting the main part of Azerbaijan with the NAR through Iran will begin to function. The border road bridge was laid in Agbend (Zangilan) in early October last year as part of the Memorandum of Understanding between the governments of Azerbaijan and Iran on the creation of new communication links between the East Zangezur Economic Region of Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic (NAR) through the territory of Iran. It is expected that after the completion of construction, the number of trucks and other vehicles that will be able to receive a checkpoint at the state border and a road bridge with seven lanes on a daily basis will amount to 1.1 thousand. cars and 30 buses.

The day before, footage of the bridge under construction across the Araz was published. It is reported that almost 50 percent of the work has been completed on the Azerbaijani side, and 25 percent on the Iranian side. Many analysts fear that the Iranian part of the project will suffer the same fate as the Rasht-Astara railway line, the construction of which Iran has been dragging on for many years. Recall that Rasht-Astara is an important part of the "through" North-South railway. To connect the North with the South, in particular, with the Persian Gulf, only this section is missing. Last year, Russia took over the bulk of the financing of the project (1.3 out of 1.6 billion euros), and the matter seems to have moved forward.

However, in the case of the South Araz corridor, as it is called, there will be no such delays. First of all, because Iran needs it itself. The Iranian side has done everything to prevent the implementation of the Zangezur corridor. Tehran sang along with Yerevan in every possible way, supporting its foolish fears. In Armenia, they rejoiced at this support, not realizing that the neighbors were simply eliminating a competitor in this way. Having carried out communications from Eastern Zangezur to Nakhchivan, Iran automatically becomes a participant in East-West transit, or rather, one of the branches of this grandiose route. Armenia could have been in his place, but Yerevan did not have the sense to see the future. But Iran saw this prospect perfectly well, and under the pretext of caring about Armenia's sovereignty, they distanced it from the opportunities that opened up to it. So the Iranian side will try very hard to implement the project until Yerevan gets smarter. In difficult geopolitical vicissitudes and with Iran's precarious position in the international arena, the Azerbaijani project will always be a transport window for it in the western direction.

It is important that in addition to the highway, the construction of a railway line is also planned within the framework of the agreements. A couple of weeks ago, the heads of the railway departments of the two countries discussed a railway project that will connect the NAR with the main territory of Azerbaijan through Iranian territory. The part of the railway corridor that falls on the territory of Azerbaijan can be said to be almost ready. The construction of the Goradiz-Agbend road is proceeding rapidly. In the future, this line will connect with Iranian railways via a railway bridge across the Araz. The length of the Goradiz-Agbend highway is more than 110 kilometers, and together with the side tracks 140 kilometers. There will be 40 bridges on it, and one of them - across the Hakari River, will become the longest railway bridge in the region. It has 23 spans and is over 770 meters long. As the Railways proudly emphasize, the bridge, which is being built in technically difficult conditions, was designed exclusively by local specialists.

It should be noted that the Goradiz-Agbend railway will be completed in 2025. By this time, Armenia should have already completed the restoration of its section of the Zangezur corridor. If Yerevan had not started listening to external advisers, it would have been so. In January 2022, Nikol Pashinyan created a working group to prepare a plan for the restoration of the Soviet-era railway connecting the main part of Azerbaijan with the Nakhchivan Autonomy. This was the only practical step that Yerevan took to implement its commitments made within the framework of the Trilateral Statement, but Pashinyan failed to complete it. I didn't have the guts. According to preliminary estimates, the work on the Armenian section of the road - from Yeraskh to the western border of NAR and from the eastern tip of Nakhchivan through Meghri (Western Zangezur) to the border of the main territory of Azerbaijan - was supposed to cost about $ 200 million and take three years.

To be fair, Pashinyan initially tried to explain to his unhealthy society the advantages that the restoration of this railway line would give Armenia. But the society did not understand him. And later, the country had new advisers who advised it to turn the obligations of Armenia, which lost the war, into an object of blackmail and speculation.

It was a big mistake. In response to the blackmail, Azerbaijan simply began to build a road to the NAR through Iran, making it clear that it always has a plan B, and Armenia is not a country that can set conditions for someone. Especially Baku.