With economic expansion comes political and military expansion — Andrey Areshev

Speaking with Alpha News, Russian political scientist and expert at the Strategic Culture Foundation Andrey Areshev commented on the statement by Turkish Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu about readiness to implement the so-called “Zangezur corridor” project together with Azerbaijan.

“The statement by the Turkish minister is not the first statement of this kind. It proves that there are ongoing discussions of various options for opening the so-called ‘Zangezur corridor’ on the northern side of the Araks, or the Araks corridor through the territory of Iran along the southern bank of this river. This would be the railway, which is designed to connect, as we know, Azerbaijan with the Nakhichevan autonomy and further to Turkey.

We know that there is quite an active interest in this project. Baku and Ankara are interested in it the most. Moscow, it seems to me, looks at this differently. This causes various disputes, and, apparently, different opinions are expressed. We know that this issue has been raised repeatedly and discussed in the Russian-Iranian political and diplomatic agenda because a variety of opinions are also expressed in Iran.

Now it is difficult to say at what stage this is because the issue has been discussed in various formats for almost a quarter of a century. Turkey and Azerbaijan are also showing enviable consistency. Apparently, various issues are being resolved related to who will build it and the mechanism of functioning of this road,” the expert said.

According to Areshev, the strong desire of Turkey and Azerbaijan to build a corridor through Armenia is due to a number of expansionist reasons—from economic to political and military.

“This is an economic expansion because they also have a railway that runs along the longer Baku-Tbilisi-Akhalkalaki-Kars route. By the way, they are trying to loop this railway route, if possible, to connect Kars with Igdir. It will turn out to be a Caucasian transport ring bypassing Armenia and entering Armenian territory in Syunik, which, apparently, is somehow designed to contribute to the economic development of the eastern regions of Turkey, where, as we know, large infrastructure projects and hydraulic engineering projects are currently being implemented.

Well, hand in hand with economic expansion, of course, there is also Turkey’s political and partly military expansion in the Caucasus, where it is trying to strengthen its positions as much as possible. We know this very well, first of all, by the example of military-technical cooperation between Turkey and Azerbaijan. More contracts have been signed recently. Of course, an additional transport route would not go amiss,” Areshev concluded.