Iran opens consulate in Kapan as Tehran looks to expand ties with Armenia

Iran officially established its consulate general in Kapan in southern Armenia. With the consulate, Iran is the first country to establish a diplomatic mission in the Armenian province of Syunik.

Iran officially established its consulate general in Kapan Friday last week. Foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian officially inaugurated the consulate. The consulate is believed to be part of an effort to support Iran’s assertion that any changes in its borders and transit links with Armenia would be a crossing “red line” – a message meant for Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Azerbaijan and Turkey are both looking to put up a new transport link that would connect the Azerbaijani territory of Nakhchivan with the mainland, a route they call the “Zangezur corridor.”

Should the route be established, it would bypass Armenian checkpoints and have repercussions for Iran-Armenia commerce and may sever a major Iranian transit link with the South Caucasus.

Armenia has said the corridor is a breach of the ceasefire from the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war that Azerbaijan won, reclaiming control of territories that were under Armenian control since the previous dispute in the 1990s.

“I will advise the people of Kapan not to worry, we are here for the Armenian people,” said Iran’s new consul-general in Kapan Morteza Abedin Varamin, at the inauguration ceremony.

“Iran considers Armenia’s security to be the security of its own and the region,” said Amirabdollahian, adding that they are ready to host an Armenian consulate general in Iran’s northwestern Tabriz, where many ethnic Iranian Turks reside.

Amirabdollahian led a delegation to meet with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Yerevan Saturday. Amirabdollahian also had meetings with his counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan and Armenia’s National Assembly President Alen Simonyan.

Iran’s inauguration of a consulate in Kapan follows the large-scale military drills by its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps near the border it shares with Azerbaijan.

Iran is under heavy scrutiny in recent weeks due to the ongoing protests sparked by the death of a woman in the custody of the Morality Police.

Tehran has sought to blame people connected to foreign governments for the unrest. A senior Iranian judiciary official said Tehran is moving to officially designate two UK-based Persian-language television channels as “terrorists” for their coverage of the ongoing “unrest.”

International affairs deputy official Kazem Gharibabadi said cases are being documented against BBC Persian and Iran International, aiming to blacklist the channels for “guiding and inciting riots, destroying public and private property and equipment, and terrorist acts.”