Iran opposes US President Donald Trump’s plan for a proposed transit corridor through southern Armenia linking two parts of Azerbaijan as a threat to its security, a senior advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader told Armenia’s ambassador in Tehran on Monday.
“The so-called Trump plan regarding the Caucasus is no different from the Zangezur Corridor, and the Islamic Republic is completely opposed to it,” Ali Akbar Velayati said during a meeting with Armenia's Ambassador to Tehran Grigor Hakobyan.
Velayati is foreign policy advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The corridor, he added, creates “conditions for NATO’s presence north of Iran" and "presents the security of northern Iran and southern Russia with a serious threat."
His remarks come as Armenia and Azerbaijan move ahead with a US-brokered peace deal signed at the White House in August, which includes plans for the new transit corridor.
The planned route — formally named the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” — will run through Armenia’s Syunik region, linking Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave and on to Turkey and Europe.
By bypassing Iranian territory, it undercuts Tehran’s land link between Azerbaijan and Europe and gives Washington a new foothold in the South Caucasus.
Velayati warned that the plan for a new transit corridor in the Caucasus is, in Iran’s view, the same as the Zangezur Corridor—a project Iran has long opposed because it could change borders and increase foreign military influence near Iran.
Velayati said the plan is “practically the same project whose name has merely been changed and is now being pursued in the form of the entry of American companies into Armenia.”
Velayati accused Washington of using economic projects as a doorway to expand its military presence in the region.
“Experience has shown that the Americans first enter sensitive regions with seemingly economic projects, but gradually their presence expands to military and security dimensions," he said.
"The opening of America’s presence at Iran’s borders in any form has clear security consequences.”
