TEHRAN -- Iran’s top security official says tension and conflict in the Caucasus region benefit no country, while indicating Iran’s opposition to any geographical change in that region.
Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani made the remarks in a meeting with the visiting Secretary of Armenia’s Security Council Armen Grigoryan in Tehran on Sunday.
“Any geographical change in the South Caucasus region is a tension-building measure, which will play into the hands of the enemies of regional security and stability,” Shamkhani said.
Iran’s top security official added that continuous dialogue and interaction must replace any “hard approach” to ending regional challenges.
His remarks came against a backdrop of decades of tension between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Karabakh region on the border between the two countries.
Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
In 2020, the second Karabakh war broke out, killing more than 6,500
people on both sides during a six-week conflict. The war ended with a Russian-brokered deal that saw Yerevan cede swathes of the Azerbaijani territory that it had been occupying for decades.
Shamkhani said the Caucasus region is going through a sensitive period, expressing hope that Azerbaijan and Armenia would be able to overcome the existing tensions through self-restraint and prudence.
He mentioned development of cooperation and interaction with neighbors as an unchanging principle of Iran’s foreign policy and a priority for the sitting Iranian administration.
“Good-neighborly relations and a joint endeavor for the settlement of the regional challenges through peaceful means are among the Islamic Republic’s most important pieces of advice to all parties,” Shamkhani asserted.
For his part, Armenia’s top security official said Iran played an “important role” in the development of relations among South Caucasus countries and also in protecting the regional security.
Grigoryan lauded Iran’s “very effective” role in realization of regional peace and stability, emphasizing that dialogue and interaction among the countries constitute the only way of resolving existing regional crises and preventing further tension and conflicts.