why Armenia fears that the south of the country will in turn be coveted by Azerbaijan

Will Azerbaijan go further? Since Baku’s victory over Nagorno-Karabakh, residents of southern Armenia fear that the Syunik region is now in President Ilham Aliyev’s sights. Such territorial continuity would further strengthen the bond between Azerbaijan and Turkey. It was also from Nakhichevan that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan celebrated the “victory” in Nagorno-Karabakh of his closest ally, seeing “new opportunities” for the region. Franceinfo explains to you why there is growing concern in Yerevan.

Because Azerbaijan wants to connect its territory to Nakhchivan

For a century, Azerbaijan has owned Nakhichevan, a mountainous region which has no continuity with the rest of the country and which is landlocked between Armenia, Turkey and Iran. In 1921, Stalin made it an autonomous Soviet socialist republic, before attaching it to Azerbaijan in 1923, traces The cross. The territory, which extends over 5,500 km2, is mainly populated by Azeris.

President Azerbaijani, Ilham Aliev has always called for a land route that would pass through Armenia to reach Nakhichevan. After Baku’s victory in the 2020 war between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan, the two countries agreed on the principle of this route. According to the ceasefire agreement, established via Russian mediation, Armenia promises to guarantee transport security, under the control of Russian authorities. However, this agreement angered thousands of Armenian demonstrators who saw it as a capitulation by their leaders.

While this corridor remains at the project stage for the moment, Ilham Aliev also wants it to have an extraterritorial status. Therefore, the goods and people circulating there would not be subject to Armenian law, despite their passage through the country. “For the Armenians, it would be the beginning of the end because they would be surrounded by deadly enemies and cut off from the border with Iran”warned Tigrane Yégavian, researcher in international relations and specialist in the region, on franceinfo in mid-September.

However, an attack on Baku in southern Armenia in order to establish this route by force “seems unlikely in the near future”, according to Armine Margaryan, former chief of staff of the Security Council of Armenia. Azerbaijan would then risk entering into conflict with the West. “After the invasion of Ukraine, the West demonstrated its very strong hostility towards violations of respect for the territorial integrity of countries,” she recalls in The cross.

Because Turkey supports Azerbaijan’s ambitions

Turkey, Baku’s great ally in the region, is particularly favorable to the corridor project. On September 25, five days after Azerbaijan’s offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ilham Aliyev met in Nakhichevan. The two leaders were to officially launch the construction of an 85 km gas pipeline between eastern Turkey and Nakhichevan, and inaugurate a military complex. But according to Turkish media cited by AFP, they were also to discuss the opening of the “Zangezour corridor”, named after the mountain range which forms a natural border between Nakhchivan and the Armenian province of Syunik.

Its route would run along the border with Iran to the south of Armenia, via the town of Meghri. After the 2020 war, Armenians were already worried about the fate of this locality. “If we abandon Artsakh [le nom du Haut-Karabakh pour les Arméniens]we will abandon Meghri, and then Yerevan”had warned the President of the Armenian National Assembly, a statement reported at the time by French diplomacy (PDF). Today, the inhabitants of this town feel threatened and some say they are ready to take up arms to defend themselves.

For Ankara, in addition to strengthening economic exchanges with Baku, this corridor would allow it to extend its influence towards all Turkic states, whose languages ​​share the same roots as Turkish. In addition to Azerbaijan, this is the case for Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and even part of western China, develops France Inter.

“No one knows exactly what this corridor might look like, but observers fear that the junction will be made simply by the annexation of southern Armenia, the Syunik regiondeplores to franceinfo Taline Ter Minassian, specialist in post-Soviet states and teacher at the National Institute of Oriental Languages ​​and Civilizations. This would be a terrible scenario, a fairly massive violation of Armenia’s territorial integrity. Especially since military aggression would weaken Azerbaijan’s position in the Western-led peace process with Armenia.”

Because Armenia’s allies are divided on how much support to provide

Faced with this threat, Armenia’s allies say they are ready to support it, but without real unity. “France is very vigilant about the territorial integrity of Armenia, because that is what is at stake,” assured Emmanuel Macron in a television interview on September 24. Visiting Yerevan, the head of French diplomacy, Catherine Colonna, announced on Tuesday that Paris had “gave consent” for the delivery of military equipment to Armenia, in order to strengthen its defense against Azerbaijan.

The United States is more timid. “For the moment, we are very focused on the humanitarian situation,” John Kirby, spokesperson for the American National Security Council, said Tuesday, quoted by AFP.

For its part, Russia, although Yerevan’s historical ally, is gradually distancing itself from Armenia. The latter accuses it of having abandoned it by not ensuring the security of Nagorno-Karabakh, as provided for in the 2020 ceasefire agreement. The resumption of this territory by Azerbaijan “was inevitable”judged Vladimir Putin on Thursday, while specifying that Armenia was “always” the friend of Moscow.

Only Iran, where a large Azeri minority lives (in the north of the country), remains fiercely opposed to the project of a corridor in the south of Armenia. Tehran is wary of the desires of nationalists who would like to create a “Greater Azerbaijan”. As recalled The crossIran is instead proposing a route that would pass within its borders and remain under its control.