Civilnet
By Siranush Adamyan
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said Baku will accept no reciprocal arrangement on the so-called “Zangezur corridor,” insisting that Azerbaijan must be granted a unilateral right to access its Nakhichevan exclave through Armenia’s Syunik province without offering similar transit to Armenia in return.
Speaking in Stepanakert — a city ethnically cleansed of its Armenian population following Azerbaijan’s 2023 military operation — Aliyev ruled out any foreign presence or international lease on Azerbaijani soil. “There will be no operators, no leases, no rentals on our territory. This question should be directed to the Armenian leadership,” he said during remarks at the Shushi Global Media Forum on Saturday.
Aliyev’s rejection of reciprocity contradicts Yerevan’s position, which has advocated a mutual opening of regional transport routes. Armenia has suggested linking its southern town of Meghri to the rest of the country via Nakhichevan, in return for allowing Azerbaijan to use the Syunik route. However, for Baku, the route — often referred to as “Zangezur corridor” — is presented as a strictly internal connection between two parts of Azerbaijan, leaving no room for symmetrical arrangements.
The Azerbaijani president also renewed attacks on Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s past rhetoric on Nagorno-Karabakh, particularly his 2019 assertion that “Karabakh is Armenia.” “Even Pashinyan himself now says they should have recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan earlier,” Aliyev remarked, claiming that Yerevan's constitutional framework still harbors territorial claims.
Aliyev called for constitutional amendments and the disbanding of the OSCE Minsk Group — established in 1992 to mediate the Karabakh conflict — saying both were outdated and obstructive to lasting peace. “If the conflict is over, and the group was created for that conflict, it must be eliminated,” he said.
Aliyev also denounced the European Union’s monitoring mission on the Armenian side of the border, describing EU observers as “well-trained spies” conducting intelligence gathering against both Azerbaijan and Iran. The EU mission was deployed in February 2023 following Azerbaijan’s large-scale attack on sovereign Armenian territory in September 2022.
His remarks come amid mounting debate over a U.S.-backed proposal to lease the 32-kilometer Syunik route to a neutral third-party operator for up to 100 years. Confirmed by U.S. envoy Thomas Barrack, the plan aims to provide secure Azerbaijani transit to Nakhichevan while assuaging regional sovereignty concerns.
While Armenian officials have publicly dismissed any notion of ceding territorial control, Prime Minister Pashinyan has not ruled out outsourcing the management of the route. Speaking at a July 16 press conference, he noted that Armenia already relies on foreign operators to manage key infrastructure — including the Yerevan airport and national railway — and suggested the creation of a dedicated operator company for the Syunik route, with potential international investment but full Armenian ownership.
See: Pashinyan does not rule out outsourcing management of Syunik route
Yerevan has consistently rejected the use of the term “Zangezur corridor,” describing it as an irredentist label coined by Baku to suggest extraterritorial control. Pashinyan’s government maintains that any reopening of regional transport links must happen “within the framework of sovereignty, jurisdiction, and territorial integrity.”
Despite the hardened rhetoric, Aliyev expressed cautious optimism that a peace agreement with Armenia was near finalization — a claim echoed by U.S. President Donald Trump, who said on Friday the deal was “pretty close — if not, it’s already done.”
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