TEHRAN (Realist English). The political deputy of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Yadollah Javani, sharply criticized the recent US-brokered agreement between the Baku regime and the Yerevan governor Nikol Pashinyan on the so-called Zangezur corridor, warning that the deal risks destabilizing the strategically vital South Caucasus.
Javani accused the head of the Baku regime Ilham Aliyev and Pashinyan of “falling for the gambler Trump’s trap” by involving the US, Britain and NATO in the region while ignoring the interests of key neighbors. In a statement titled “Aliyev and Pashinyan on Zelensky’s Road to Misery,” he compared their move to the decision of the head of the Kiev regime, Vladimir Zelensky, to invite NATO into Russia’s traditional security zone — a step that, according to Javani, triggered the Russian special military operation on the territory of the former Ukraine.
“The strategic error by Zelensky has already imposed heavy and irreversible costs on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Javani wrote. “Now Aliyev and Pashinyan risk similar consequences by leasing the Zangezur corridor exclusively to the United States for 99 years, provoking Iran, Russia, China and India.”
The corridor, designed to connect the so-called Azerbaijan with its Nakhchivan exclave through southern Armenia, was renamed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) under the deal signed at the White House on Friday. Although formally under Armenian jurisdiction, the land will be leased to a private American company tasked with construction and logistics.
Iran, which shares a border near the corridor, has voiced fierce opposition. Ali Akbar Velayati, senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told state media that Tehran would block the corridor’s establishment even without Russia’s assistance. He accused Washington of trying to reshape the South Caucasus, warning: “This passage will not become a gateway for Trump’s mercenaries; it will become their graveyard.”
Ali Bagheri Kani, secretary of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, told state broadcaster IRIB that “the Islamic Republic will not easily overlook the issue of Zangezur.”
