Direct translation of the article
[Regnum] The head of the press service of the Iranian Foreign Ministry Said Khatibzade said that Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will visit Azerbaijan and Armenia. However, he did not name the purpose of the visit and the issues that will be discussed during Zarif's Transcaucasian tour. The last time the head of the Iranian Foreign Ministry passed this route was at the end of January this year.
But then Tbilisi, Ankara and Moscow were added to Baku and Yerevan, which looked like a probing trip. It was important for Tehran not only to assess the changes in the region that occurred after the signing by Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia of the peace agreement on November 9, 2020, which ended the second Karabakh war, but also to find its place in the new regional geopolitical reality.
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A lot of words were said about the need to establish multilateral cooperation between the countries of the region in various sectors of the economy, in the transit sphere, in the use of the East-West and North-South corridors with Iran's involvement in this process. But not in all the capitals of the Transcaucasian countries, the general approving statements of Zarif were received with a bang. So, if in Baku he spoke about "the importance of territorial integrity, independence and national sovereignty of all countries of the region, including Armenia", then in Yerevan he pointed to "aggressive actions" of Baku and its attempts to resolve the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh exclusively by force.
As for Tbilisi, which received with satisfaction Zarif's assurances of "support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia", There, Russia, Turkey, Iran plus Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia, proposed by Ankara, were apprehensive about the new format of regional cooperation (3 + 3) proposed by Ankara. Tbilisi, which began to be introduced into this format without agreement with it, considers it to be "super unprofitable" because there was no room for "strategic partners" - the EU and the US, and this initiative was even perceived as a "wake-up call" in the process of impending geopolitical changes in the region. To date, the situation in this respect has not changed.
And it is no coincidence that this time Zarif does not visit Tbilisi. that there was no place in it for "strategic partners" - the EU and the United States, and this initiative was even perceived as an "alarming signal" in the process of impending geopolitical changes in the region. To date, the situation in this respect has not changed. And it is no coincidence that this time Zarif does not visit Tbilisi. that there was no place in it for "strategic partners" - the EU and the United States, and this initiative was even perceived as an "alarming signal" in the process of impending geopolitical changes in the region. To date, the situation in this respect has not changed. And it is no coincidence that this time Zarif does not visit Tbilisi.
It is also curious that at that very moment Ankara announced the visit of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Azerbaijan, which is to take place "in the coming weeks." The last time Erdogan was in Azerbaijan was in December 2020. It is reported that he and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev "will continue discussions on how to plan reconstruction and other work in Karabakh." But informed sources claim that the main purpose of Erdogan's visit to Baku will be to discuss the post-conflict situation in the region and the prospects for the implementation of the "3 + 3" platform.
In this case, Ankara and Tehran are trying to squeeze into the "Transcaucasian equation" in order to designate their presence in the region, which is taking place against the background of more frequent talks at the public level about Azerbaijan's involvement in the work of the Eurasian Economic Union. And until recently it was impossible to imagine this. At the same time, everyone understands that the integration of Baku into the EAEU solves issues related not only to the Transcaucasia - we are talking about directions to Iran, Turkey, the Middle East, and this is a very important issue not only from the point of view of the economy, but also from the point of view of strategic interests of Russia and its partners.
As Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko said in an interview with Izvestia, "the doors of the CSTO should be open to everyone, including Azerbaijan." By the way, with such a course of events, the contours of the new future of Karabakh may become the most unexpected. Of course, these processes are closely watched in Iran and Turkey. They are studying the situation, and it is far from a fact that their actions in Transcaucasia will be confrontational in relation to new geopolitical projects soaring in the air. Their choice is simple: stay aside or agree to joint participation in them.
Perhaps during Zarif's next visit to Azerbaijan and Armenia, some additional proposals aimed at developing the region in the post-conflict period will be voiced. Moreover, six months have passed since the end of the war, during this time a lot has been done, much has become clearer. Perhaps some options for Tehran's further actions will be found, but in any case, this is still a difficult task, any solution of which will make significant adjustments to the geopolitical agenda, because in the regional aspect, Iran and Turkey are frank rivals, whose interests, from the economy to the same geopolitics are often diametrically opposed, especially in situations when Iran "begins to withdraw from the defense."
There is one more factor - the presence of a Turkic-speaking population in the north of the country. This circumstance restrains any active Iranian actions on this bridgehead. It is important for him to concretize his terms of interaction with neighboring states, since during Zarif's meetings in Baku and Yerevan, they will also talk about specific joint projects and the possibilities of their implementation. There is no doubt that Tehran is using this important nuance in the talks in Baku and Yerevan in order to make certain adjustments to the geopolitical agenda.
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