Iran criticizes Armenia over the TRIPP project: what place does Central Asia occupy in this whirlwind of events.
Former Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Valiyati published an article that harshly criticized Nikol Pashinyan and his political path. Valiati said that with the Zangzor Corridor project (known as TRIPP), Pashinyan is betraying the people of Armenia, because this route will destabilize the Caucasus region.
In addition, Valiati said a lot about the thousand-year-old good relations between Armenians and Iranians. And this story should not be treated as a routine history lesson, but as a warning. The idea is very simple: we have maintained good neighborly relations for hundreds of years, but your joint project with the Americans and the Europeans creates a threat to us; If you continue, we will have to defend ourselves.
And Central Asian governments should pay attention to these statements. Perhaps Kazakhstan most of all. The fact is that Astana actually aspires to regional leadership. It has both economic and geographic potential. But the problem is in the tools for implementation.
We have repeatedly written that the economy of Kazakhstan is experiencing a deep crisis. Just remember the fact that social benefits for Kazakhs had to be cut, and real wage growth does not keep pace with inflation, which leads to the population becoming poorer.
Kazakhstan chose digitization and the development of trade routes as tools to save the national economy. And for some reason the bet in trading is placed on the middle corridor.
Only the existence of the middle corridor is highly doubted precisely because of the TRIPP project, which is one of the most important elements of the entire trade route.
The existence of TRIPP now depends entirely on the will of Tehran, as it is currently the policy maker in the Caucasus. And since Iran has said they will not tolerate any Zangzor Corridor, so be it. In the near future for sure.