TEHRAN (Azatutyun) — Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan discussed with Iran’s leaders Armenia’s ongoing peace talks with Azerbaijan and described the Islamic Republic as his country’s “special partner” during a visit to Tehran on Monday, July 24.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry said Mirzoyan briefed Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on the “latest developments in the process of normalization of Armenia-Azerbaijan relations” and reaffirmed the Armenian government’s position on the “establishment of lasting peace in the South Caucasus.”
The issue also topped the agenda of his separate talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian held earlier in the day. Mirzoyan complained about Azerbaijan’s continuing blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh’s only land link with Armenia, saying that it is hampering a peace deal currently discussed by Baku and Yerevan.
Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported that, Mohammad Jamshidi, a top aide to Raisi quoted him as warning against US involvement in Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks.
“These negotiations have to be carried out based on the interests of the [two] nations and without political conspiracies involving America and the Zionist regime [Israel,]” Raisi said, according to Jamshidi.
In recent months, the United States has been at the forefront of international efforts to broker a comprehensive peace treaty between Baku and Yerevan. Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov held two rounds of intensive US-mediated talks in May and June.
