The conservative lawmaker, Mahmoud Ahmadi-Bighash, arrived in Yerevan earlier this week together with several other members of an Iranian parliamentary group promoting closer ties with Armenia.
They held a series of meetings with Armenian parliament deputies before being received by Armen Grigorian, the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council.
A statement released by the council cited Ahmadi-Bighash as saying that the region is very important to the Islamic Republic.
“In particular, he stressed that regional peace and stability and inviolability of the borders are the red lines for Iran and Tehran will not tolerate any territorial change in the region,” the statement said.
Other Iranian lawmakers as well as Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made similar statements in early October amid Iran’s mounting tensions with Azerbaijan that followed Baku’s decision to levy hefty fees from Iranian trucks transporting goods to and from Armenia.
The vehicles use a road mostly passing through Armenia’s southeastern Syunik province which is sandwiched between Azerbaijan and its Nakhichevan exclave and also borders Iran. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly threatened to forcibly open a “corridor” to Nakhichevan, drawing strong condemnation from Armenia.
Mojtaba Zonnouri, a senior Iranian parliamentarian and cleric, accused Aliyev on October 3 of trying to “cut Iran’s access to Armenia” with the help of Turkey and Israel. Zonnouri was apparently among 165 members of Iran’s parliament who issued a joint statement warning against “any geopolitical change and alteration of the borders of neighbor countries.”
Armenia’s government regularly expresses readiness for conventional transport links with Azerbaijan. Grigorian told Ahmadi-Bighash and other visiting Iranian lawmakers that the Armenian government’s position “matches Iran’s foreign policy priorities.”
The tensions between Tehran and Baku have eased in recent weeks. Amir-Abdollahian visited the Azerbaijani capital on Wednesday.