Pashinyan preferred the opening of the “Zangezur corridor” over the preservation of Artsakh

Following reports that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev may meet for negotiations in Dubai at the end of July, the Turkish leader announced another agreement reached on June 19 and 20 during the visits of the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia to Turkey.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan believes that Armenia has taken a more flexible approach to the launch of the Zangezur corridor. “Although Armenia initially opposed the Zangezur corridor, it has taken a more flexible approach to participating in economic integration. The development of this region is an opportunity not only for Azerbaijan, but also for Armenia, us, Iran, and other countries. The Zangezur corridor will bring new opportunities not only for Azerbaijan, but also for the entire region. We view this line not only as part of a geopolitical revolution, but also as a geoeconomic one,” Erdogan told reporters aboard his plane returning from Azerbaijan.

There is nothing new in Erdogan’s remarks. The only difference is the geopolitical context in which this statement was made. Russia and Azerbaijan have entered a period of confrontation after the destruction of the Kremenchuk Oil Refinery and the attack on Baku’s illegal revenues. Iran is weakened by its 12-day war with Israel and the United States. Moreover, Iranian “reformist president” Masoud Pezeshkian said in an interview with journalist Tucker Carlson that as a result of the US’s illegal attacks on Iranian nuclear centers and facilities, much of the equipment and facilities have been severely damaged, and Tehran currently has no access to them.

Erdogan and Pashinyan had been working towards this statement about a “flexible approach” to opening the corridor for a long time. On November 9, 2020, a trilateral statement was signed by the leaders of Armenia, Russia, and Azerbaijan. Article 9 of the agreement called for the unblocking of all transport communications in the region. From November 10 onward, Azerbaijan began promoting the concept of the so-called “Zangezur Corridor,” which quickly became a contentious issue in Armenian domestic politics. The topic was easily manipulated by Pashinyan’s propaganda machine.

Pashinyan was happy to use this “Aliyev gift,” framing the narrative as follows: “The Azerbaijanis are demanding the Zangezur corridor because there is the Lachin corridor, because there is the 9th point of the November 9 statement, which also mentions the Russian FSB border guards, and therefore it is necessary to free ourselves from Artsakh in order to solve all these problems.”

In the end, the situation deteriorated: the Lachin Corridor ceased to exist, Armenian Artsakh was lost, and Azerbaijan and Ankara continued to demand the Zangezur corridor—an extraterritorial route that Armenia would not control. In this situation, the only important question is whether Pashinyan understood that even after the surrender of Artsakh, Azerbaijan and Turkey would continue to demand a corridor—not the unblocking of communications, but a corridor.

He knew it. He knew it back in 2001, when he wrote the following lines: “Today, Armenia is a geopolitical factor—a serious one—due to its geographical location (which is often lamented). But it is a factor that disrupts others’ plans. Of course, no one ever unconditionally yields to their neighbors’ ambitions, but rather tries to align them with their own interests. In our case, the irony is that Turkey’s entry into Central Asia does not contradict our interests, but it does contradict the interests of Russia and China.”

Today, we have a situation where, instead of the acceptable Russian proposal of November 9, 2020, which included the preservation of Artsakh and the unblocking of communications under Armenian sovereignty, but with the presence of Russian FSB border guards (who have been stationed on the Iranian-Turkish border for decades), Pashinyan has chosen an option that does not include either Karabakh or Armenian sovereignty over this corridor.