Could US-Run Zengezur Transit Zone Become Danzig Corridor of the 21st Century and Trigger a World War? Some in Moscow and Tehran Think So

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 10 – Two years ago, a Moscow writer warned any use of force by Baku to establish a Zengezur corridor between Azerbaijan proper and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan could trigger a world war much as the Danzig corridor had before World War II (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/10/zengezur-may-become-danzig-corridor-of.html).

            Now, as a result of an agreement between the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia brokered by US President Donald Trump, an American supervised corridor is to be established across what will remain territory under Armenian sovereignty to allow movement of people and cargo between Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan.

            According to reports, the US has agreed that it will not militarize the corridor (akcent.site/novosti/42483); but even its administrative control of the corridor has outraged Iran whose government has threatened to use force to prevent it from ever opening (asia24.media/news/stanet-kladbishchem-iran-prigrozil-zablokirovat-marshrut-trampa-na-kavkaze/, ekhokavkaza.com/a/iran-vystupil-protiv-koridora-trampa-v-armenii-/33498764.html and rfi.fr/ru/кавказ/20250810-иран-не-допустит-создания-транспортного-nd коридора-под-управлением-сша-у-своей-границы-советник-хаменеи).

            And while Moscow at least so far has not threatened the use of force to block the creation of the US-supervised corridor, commentators and analysts in the Russian capital have made clear that they oppose it almost as much as does Tehran and might support an Iranian move against it (e.g., vpoanalytics.com/sobytiya-i-kommentarii/tramp-aliev-i-pashinyan-v-vashingtone-ot-plana-gobla-do-puti-trampa/).

            That is certainly what the Iran government hopes for. In a commentary on Moscow’s VPO Analytics portal, Tigran Bagramyan quotes an interview the foreign policy advisor to Iran’s supreme leader on Tehran’s hopes in that regard. Ali Akbar Velayati gave to the Tansim agency (vpoanalytics.com/geopolitika-i-bezopasnost/ucheniya-eagle-partner-25-amerikanskie-partnyery-armenii-desantiruyutsya-na-berega-araksa/).

Velayati rejected the plans for a US-supervised Zengezur Corridor, declaring that “we hope that Russia will provide strategic opposition to this corridor” because with it, NATO wants to put a poisonous snake between Russia and Iran, something we will not allow.” And Iran will act to defense “the security of the Southern Caucasus with Russia or without it.”

According to Bagramyan, this issue is now coming to a head not only because of the announcement of the agreement to create this US-supervised corridor but also because US troops are arriving in Armenia to carry out a joint exercise with the Armenian military, Eagle Partner 25, August 12-20.

That puts the American troops near or even in the territory of the transit corridor w and raises the question, Bagramyan suggests, as to whether they will leave when the exercise ends. If some in Moscow and Tehran are even asking that question, that alone is a sign of just how dangerous the situation could become.