Trump-brokered peace treaty predicted to suffocate geopolitical influence of Washington’s rivals in region
Iran expressed concern about foreign interference on Saturday, fearing it had been carved out of a declaration brokered by Donald Trump between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The two countries have come closer to ending 35 years of enmity by signing a peace treaty in Washington and agreeing to a US private consortium taking control of a strategic corridor on Iran’s border.
The corridor passing through southern Armenia will link Azerbaijan with its exclave Nakhchivan, a longstanding demand of Baku. The US will operate the corridor under Armenian sovereignty on a 99-year land lease, changing the balance of power in the region. Some Iranian commentators claimed the deal amounts to “Iran’s geopolitical suffocation in the region”.
Control of the corridor that runs along the border between Armenia and northern Iran has been the single biggest block to a peace deal between the two countries.
The deal is also a further blow to Russia’s diminished influence in the region, as Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, guides his Christian-majority country towards the west, and eventually the EU. Russia – which still has a military base in Armenia – seems unable to resist the Trump initiative, partly due to its preoccupation with Ukraine.
