Iran's vice president visit was connected to North-South highway construction, Armenia's minister says

By Siranush Adamyan

Iran's vice president traveled to Armenia in late June specifically to mark the start of construction on a key tunnel along the North-South highway, Armenia's infrastructure minister said, underscoring Tehran's direct role in the project through an Iranian contractor carrying out the work.

Seyed Hamid Pourmohammadi, vice president of Iran and head of the Plan and Budget Organization, visited Armenia to mark the start of construction on the Kajaran tunnel, Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure Davit Khudatyan said in an interview with Public Television that aired June 30. Pourmohammadi met with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Yerevan last week, where the two discussed border infrastructure, including a second bridge and a new terminal, as well as expanded energy cooperation.

Khudatyan said the choice of Iran's vice president to headline the groundbreaking reflected Tehran's direct stake in the project. "The construction in that section is being carried out by an Iranian contractor company," he said.

The Kajaran tunnel will run 7.2 kilometers and is expected to be completed within six years, according to Khudatyan. It is being built by the same company already constructing the 32-kilometer Kajaran-Agarak road section, where Khudatyan said more than half the work is finished. That road segment is due to open in late 2027 or early 2028.

A second tunnel, in Bargushat, is planned to be longer at 8.6 kilometers, with construction expected to begin next year. Combined, the tunnels along the southern section of the North-South highway will total around 21 kilometers, alongside dozens of bridges, some already under construction, Khudatyan said.

"Our generation will see it," Khudatyan said when asked when the full North-South highway would be finished, adding that at current construction rates, the project's southern link, including the Artashat-Sisian section, should be completed within seven to eight years.

Khudatyan said completing the highway would roughly halve travel time between Armenia's border with Georgia and its border with Iran, from about 10 hours to around five. The Yerevan-Meghri stretch alone would drop from about six and a half hours to roughly four, he said.

He said the shorter routes would cut logistics costs for freight and passenger transport and position Armenia as a transit hub in the region, a role he described as increasingly important given global supply chain pressures.

Khudatyan also cited Meghri's economic transformation as evidence against opposition criticism that the government was "giving away" the border town through the project. "Meghri has never had such a large infrastructure construction site," he said, adding that he visits the area roughly a dozen times a year.

The tunnel launch came as Armenian officials pursued parallel talks on regional connectivity. Khudatyan said he met Turkey's transport minister on the sidelines of a European Union-hosted connectivity forum in Brussels, where the two discussed border infrastructure, the potential reopening of border crossings, and the construction of a new bridge at Margara, one of Armenia's main crossing points with Turkey, which has been closed since 1993.

Turkey's Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu separately confirmed the talks in a post on X, saying the two sides also reviewed the restoration of the historic Ani bridge, a joint project agreed by Armenia and Turkey in May.