Yerevan to Assume Responsibility for Guarding Armenia’s Borders with Iran and Turkey

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 8 – In April 2024, Russia removed its border guards from between Armenia and Azerbaijan, pulling out FSB officers who had been in place since Yerevan and Moscow agreed on that arrangement in 1992. And in July, Moscow pulled its FSB officers from Yerevan’s international airport.  

            Now, in a new move, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, have agreed that as of January 1, 2025, Armenia will assume full control over its single border crossing with Iran and share responsibility with Russia for its border with Turkey (pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/10/8/7478780/).

            While this accord received less attention than Pashinyan’s decision not to sign several CIS documents, it represents a major advance for Armenian statehood and an even greater retreat for Russian power in the South Caucasus, especially with regard to the Armenian border with Iran.

            That border is  along the edge of Armenia’s Syunik Oblast which Azerbaijanis refer to as Zengezur  and is the site of the what would be a corridor between Azerbaijan proper and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan. With Russian border guards completely out of the picture there as of the start of next year, talks about that corridors and others may assume new urgency.