Will not allow Trump-backed corridor linking Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan exclave: Iran

TEHRAN: A day after US President Donald Trump brokered a preliminary peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan with Armenia’s decision to lease a transit corridor to the US, linking mainland Azerbaijan with its Nakhchivan exclave, Iran said that it will not allow the creation of a corridor near its border.

“Iran will not allow the creation under a US-brokered peace deal of a corridor near the Iranian border linking Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave,” said Ali Akbar Velayati, adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday.

“With the implementation of this plot, the security of the South Caucasus will be endangered,” Velayati told the Tasnim news agency, adding that the planned “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” was “an impossible notion and will not happen”.

Trump met Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev separately at the White House on August 8, before announcing a series of agreements including the peace truce.

The long-disputed corridor, now dubbed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), will be managed by Washington, giving Azerbaijan direct access while allowing Armenia to maintain sovereignty on paper.