New highway crisis emerges as Azerbaijan sets up checkpoints on strategic Armenian road

_By Emilio Luciano Cricchio _

Azerbaijan will set up customs checkpoints along sections of the Goris-Kapan highway in the southern Armenian region of Syunik, Armen Grigoryan, the Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia announced in an interview on November 10. Grigoryan added that Armenia too will set up checkpoints along the highway, too.

“The Azerbaijani side has informed the Armenian side that starting midnight of [November 10], it will set up border-customs controls on the Goris-Kapan highway,” Grigoryan stated.

Griigoryan noted that an alternative route running from Kapan through the southern town of Tatev, and onwards to the Iranian border, is “ready.”

In addition, the roads leading to the villages of Shurnukh, Vorotan and Chakaten are being improved and restored. During a government session on November 11, the Armenian government announced that it will allocate more than $1 million to the restoration of the alternative route going through Tatev to the Iranian border, as well as to another northern highway.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan remarked that “the logic of corridors" is unacceptable for Armenia, implying that it was Baku’s condition that Yerevan should provide a corridor to link Azerbaijan with its exclave of Nakhichevan via Armenia’s Syunik region, in order for Azerbaijan to not to set up checkpoints along the Goris-Kapan highway. Pashinyan reiterated Grigroyan’s remarks that the alternative route through Tatev is now ready, adding that 100 trucks have already passed through that route.

According to Armenian media outlet Hetq, secondary school teachers from Goris working in the village of Bardzravan could not get to work today as the route between Goris and

Bardzravan is now closed.

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After the end of the Second Karabakh War and the signing of the November 9, 2020 ceasefire agreement, Armenia made large land handovers to Azerbaijan, including the Lachin, Zangelan and Qubadli regions, which border Armenia’s Syunik region. The Goris-Kapan highway crosses into what was formerly Soviet Azerbaijan in two sections, which were handed over after the 2020 war.

Armenia itself is pursuing the opening of two routes, one through the exclave of Nakhichevan onwards to Iran and another through Azerbaijan proper to Russia.

Russia too has expressed interest in opening up regional transport communications, with some analysts pointing to the possibility that Russian border forces will be deployed along any future route that opens.

On August 25, 2021, Azerbaijani servicemen blocked the Goris-Kapan highway.

By September 13, 2021, Azerbaijani set up police posts along the sections of the Goris-Kapan highway which cross into what was formerly Soviet Azerbaijan.

On September 14, Azerbaijan’s State Customs Committee confirmed that it was levying tolls on Iranian truckers traversing the Goris-Kapan highway. Azerbaijani authorities furthermore detained two Iranian truckers. According to CivilNet reporter Gevorg Tosunyan, a trucker he spoke to was charged $130 to cross the highway.

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Major Armenian highway reopened after Azerbaijani blockade

By Mark Dovich

A major highway running through Armenia’s southernmost region, Syunik, has been reopened to traffic after successful negotiations ended a two-day blockade by Azerbaijani troops, Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) has confirmed to CivilNet. It was the first time since last year’s war in and around Karabakh that Azerbaijani border guards near Syunik have acted so forcefully. Russian border guards stationed in the region reportedly mediated the negotiations.

Azerbaijan’s State Border Service stated Wednesday that two Armenian soldiers had stabbed an Azerbaijani border guard near the Armenian border village of Davit Bek and cited the stabbing to justify its closure of the highway.

Armenia’s Defense Ministry has denied that the stabbing took place and called it an “absolute falsification.” Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan reiterated Friday that news of the stabbing was “false” and called on Baku to provide Yerevan with any evidence of the incident it may have.

The highway is of crucial importance for Armenia’s security and economy because it provides an overland connection to Iran, a key strategic partner. Connecting Syunik with the rest of Armenia, the road is also a lifeline for residents of some of Armenia’s most remote communities. A 21-kilometer section of the road, built in Soviet times, runs along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border and crosses it several times due to the region’s difficult mountainous geography.

Armenia’s NSS first reported on the blockade Thursday, saying that Azerbaijani forces cut off traffic on the Karmrakar-Shurnukh section of the Goris-Kapan highway late Wednesday evening.

CivilNet’s Gevorg Tosunyan is on the scene in Syunik and has been speaking with Iranian truck drivers, several dozen of whom have been left stranded along the road due to the blockade. The truckers said that an alternative route that runs through the Armenian village of Tatev is dangerously narrow and complained that they have run out of food and money, Tosunyan reported.

Armenia and Iran share millennia-old historical and cultural ties, and Tehran is a major trading partner for Yerevan. According to World Bank data, Armenia exported nearly $84 million worth of goods to Iran and imported over $300 million in goods from the Islamic Republic in 2019.

Arman Tatoyan, Armenia’s human rights ombudsman, wrote on his official Facebook page that day that “50 or more” members of Azerbaijan’s armed forces were blocking the road near the Armenian village of Davit Bek and called it “a crime” and “a pre-planned and openly hostile act.” Tatoyan later that day added that the Goris-Vorotan section of the highway had been blockaded as well.

Before the blockade, Armenian guards patrolled one side of the road, with Azerbaijani forces stationed on the other side. Russian border guards oversee the highway’s daily operations.

Under a Russia-brokered ceasefire signed last year after 44 days of fierce fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan in and around Karabakh, the road will remain under the supervision of Russian peacekeepers while Armenia works on building an alternative route called the North-South Corridor.

The blockade comes amid seething tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, more than eight months after the ceasefire came into effect. The border in particular remains tense, with periodic shoot-outs and skirmishes between the two sides.

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