If the corridor opens on Turkey’s terms, southern Armenia will soon be under Turkish control — Hakob Badalyan

The Turkish Minister of Transport has made a loud statement that there is some development with Armenia, which will become known in the coming days. Alpha News talked about this with political commentator Hakob Badalyan.

“It would be an ungrateful task to make assumptions about what the Turkish minister meant. I believe there may be several people in Armenia now who know what the Turkish minister is talking about. The public should closely follow such statements, but at the same time, I believe that you should not draw too many conclusions from such statements alone.

It is evident that there is a very tense struggle between geopolitical approaches, entities, and superpowers on the issue of roads, and the stakes are gradually increasing. It is clear that the situation is complicated,” Hakob Badalyan noted.

According to the political commentator, it is possible that the Turkish minister made this statement without understanding or taking into account the reaction of the Armenian public to his words.

“The danger is that this situation contains a certain dead-end logic. The strategies of really strong players are clashing, and I cannot imagine what the solution could be that would satisfy any of these parties and make it possible to come to a long-term agreement.
The Turkish minister is probably just making a statement for his audience, without thinking much about what kind of reaction it will cause, for example, in the Armenian audience. If there is an agreement, why is it being disclosed ahead of time?

Perhaps we should not give too much importance to this statement, but we should monitor it closely. It is unlikely that the minister would make such a mistake, it was certainly not a mistake. We can only be guided by assumptions. There is no doubt that the problem exists and the stakes around it are growing,” he said.

Badalyan noted that perhaps Russia and Iran are “hindering” Ankara.

“We see very close contacts between Russia and Iran in a broad sense, and naturally, they are also connected with the issue of roads. We know their positions. It is possible that Turkey is concerned about this since perhaps Russia and Iran do not take into consideration the regimes that Ankara wants,” Hakob Badalyan said.

Referring to the so-called “Zangezur corridor,” the political commentator noted that if the corridor opens on Turkish terms, then in a very short time Turkey will take control of the south of Armenia.

“Whether this will be done by force or not, will be decided by Turkey, depending on the situation. The Turks are fully prepared in all respects, both with resources and with soft power,” he added.