Iran opens Kapan consulate to strengthen ties with Armenia

• Iran has frequently stated that it will not put up with changes to its border with Armenia or its transit routes.
• Tehran, Iran In what looks to be a direct message to Azerbaijan and its supporter Turkey, Iran has opened a consulate general in Kapan.
• The action appeared to reinforce Tehran’s claim that any modifications to its borders and transit routes with Armenia would cross a “red line” that it would not stand for.

Iran has frequently stated that it will not put up with changes to its border with Armenia or its transit routes.

Tehran, Iran In what looks to be a direct message to Azerbaijan and its supporter Turkey, Iran has opened a consulate general in Kapan, which is situated in the southernmost Armenian region of Syunik.

The consulate was formally opened on Friday by Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, becoming Iran the first nation to build a diplomatic office in the region sought after both Baku and Ankara.

The action appeared to reinforce Tehran’s claim that any modifications to its borders and transit routes with Armenia would cross a “red line” that it would not stand for.

Azerbaijan, which shares a border with Iran, and its ally Turkey want to build the “Zangezur corridor,” a new transportation route that would connect the exclave of Nakhchivan with the country’s mainland.

The commerce between Iran and Armenia will be affected if the route is created, effectively avoiding Armenian checks, and it may also break a significant Iranian transit link to the South Caucasus.

A historic day, as Iran opens a consulate in Kapan, Armenia.

Iran is the first country to establish a diplomatic mission in the southern province of Syunik, backing up its red line against Azeri designs.

May this be the beginning of the end of the Zangezur project. pic.twitter.com/aBPfhtmo1a

— Alison Tahmizian Meuse (@AliTahmizian) October 21, 2022

The corridor, according to Yerevan, is a violation of the ceasefire agreement made following the Nagorno-Karabakh war in 2020, which Azerbaijan won and used to retake territory that had been under Armenian control since the previous conflict in the early 1990s.

“I will advise the people of Kapan not to worry, we are here for the Armenian people,” said Morteza Abedin Varamin, Iran’s new consul-general in Kapan, at the inauguration ceremony.

Iran’s foreign minister, Amirabdollahian, stated that his country “considers Armenia’s security to be the security of its own and the region” and that Tabriz, in northwest Iran, where many Iranian Turks of ethnicity live, would be happy to host an Armenian consulate general.

In Yerevan on Saturday, Nikol Pashinyan, the prime minister of Armenia, met with Iran’s top diplomat, who was leading a high-level delegation to that country. Along with his counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan, he has also spoken with Armenia’s National Assembly president Alen Simonyan.

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