Expert: Armenian-Iranian border among oldest in the world
The border between Armenia and Iran, with its historical changes, is among the oldest in the world, an Armenian expert on Iran, Vardan Voskanyan, said on Facebook.
The comment comes after U.S. President Donald Trump's National Security Advisor John Bolton stressed that the Armenian-Iranian border is "going to be a significant issue” when President Donald Trump's administration "squeeze Iran" with maximum economic pressure in response to Tehran's “pursuit of nuclear weapons and active military operations in the Middle East and globally.”
In an interview with RFE/RL on October 25 after he met in Yerevan with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Bolton said Washington doesn't want to "cause damage to our friends in the process" of expanding sanctions against Iran, which shares a border with Armenia.
According to the Armenian expert, Bolton’s statement comes to show that the Armenian authorities not only found the US stance on Iran unacceptable, but also stressed the importance of the Armenian-Iranian border, a serious move towards upholding the country’s commitment as a reliable partner for Iran.
Voskanyan stressed the same cannot be said for Azerbaijan, where Bolton had ‘productive’ talks, according to Azerbaijani media. The US official highlighted that he had intensive discussions with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in talks that addressed, among others, the steps to ‘squeeze’ Iran.
“Such statements make it clear that US has managed to get almost full support from Baku in the context of the planned measures against Iran,” he said, stressing that Tehran, and especially the wing of President Rouhani’s political team that had ‘illusions’ about developing relations with Azerbaijan, should draw conclusions from these statements.
“Even if we forget for a moment about the enormous significance of the Armenia-Iran border both for Yerevan and Tehran, it has another important feature: the border that Armenia and Iran share are among the oldest that has ever existed between two countries, having a history of over two millennia,” he stressed, urging to "feel the whole historic force" of the border before making such statements.