The Russian Foreign Ministry first announced those plans in late May, saying that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian discussed and welcomed them during talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. A delegation of ministry officials visited Syunik’s capital for that purpose in June.
The Russian Embassy in Yerevan reported on Friday that another “advance team” of Russian diplomats visited Syunik and met with the mayor of another provincial town, Meghri, on Thursday. It said they discussed “prospects for the quick opening” of the consulate.
The Russian mission in Kapan “will contribute to the strengthening of Russian-Armenian relations and the stabilization of the situation in the region,” the embassy added in a statement. It will provide consular services to about a thousand Russian nationals currently based in Syunik.
The bulk of them are soldiers and border guards who were deployed by Moscow during and after the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh. The deployment was aimed at helping the Armenian military defend the strategic region against possible Azerbaijani attacks.
Syunik is Armenia’s sole region bordering Iran. Azerbaijani leaders have been demanding that Yerevan open a special corridor connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave through Syunik. The Armenian side says it can only agree to conventional transport links between the two states.
Iran, which opened a consulate in Kapan a year ago, is also strongly opposed to an extraterritorial corridor for Nakhichevan. It has repeatedly warned Baku against attempting to strip the Islamic Republic of the common border and transport links with Armenia.
While voicing support for Armenian sovereignty over any road or railway link passing through Syunik, Russia has stopped short publicly issuing similar warnings to Azerbaijan. Its relationship with Armenia has steadily deteriorated since 2020 due to what Pashinian’s government sees as a lack of Russian support in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The rift between the two longtime allies deepened further last month after Moscow decried “a series of unfriendly steps” taken by Yerevan. Those include Pashinian’s declaration that Armenia’s heavy reliance on Russia for defense and security has proved a “strategic mistake.” The statement raised more questions about the South Caucasus country’s continued membership in Russian-led blocs.