Speaking after a trilateral meeting with his Georgian and Azerbaijani counterparts in Baku on Friday, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said that Ankara expects “general support for the opening of the Zangezur path.” He said that is essential for “restoring peace in the South Caucasus.”
For his part, Turkish Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said in an interview publicized earlier in the day that the corridor would benefit not only Turkey and Azerbaijan but also the entire “Turkic world.”
Binali Yildirim, a former Turkish prime minister heading the Council of Elders of the Organization of Turkic States, made the same point when he spoke to journalists in Baku on Thursday.
“May the 21st century be a Turkic century,” Yildirim said. “The Zangezur corridor must also be opened.”
Unlike “mainland” Azerbaijan, Nakhichevan has a short land border with Turkey.
Armenia maintains that people and goods moving between Nakhichevan to the rest of Azerbaijan cannot be exempt from Armenian border controls and that the two South Caucasus states should have only conventional transport links guaranteeing their full control over all transit routes passing through their respective territories.
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan reaffirmed this position on Friday. Visiting Turkey earlier this month, Mirzoyan indicated that the issue is one of the two main sticking points in ongoing negotiations on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty. He met with Fidan during the trip.
The corridor demanded by Baku and Ankara would pass through Syunik, the only Armenian region bordering Iran. The Islamic Republic has repeatedly warned against attempts to strip it of the common border and transport links with Armenia.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi reportedly told a visiting Azerbaijani official last October that the “Zangezur corridor” is “resolutely opposed” by his country. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made this clear to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan when they met in Tehran in 2022.
Erdogan complained about Iran’s stance a year later. He insisted on the corridor in a speech delivered at a November 2023 summit of the leaders of Turkic states held in Kazakhstan.
