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Iran’s ambassador to Yerevan decried Azerbaijan’s unacceptable move to receive toll from Iranian trucks on a road passing through pockets of Azerbaijan-controlled territory in southern Armenia, saying the road charging runs counter to a ceasefire deal. In an interview with Tasnim news agency in Yerevan, Iran’s Ambassador Abbas Badakhshan Zohouri said it is unfortunate that the Iranian trucks using the Goris-Kapan Road have been required to pay toll.

According to the trilateral negotiations among Russia, Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan, which resulted in a ceasefire deal between Yerevan and Baku following the most recent war over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the situation in the transit route in southern Armenia was supposed to remain unchanged until the completion of a new route, the Iranian envoy said.

He explained that the transit route has been used during the past three decades. “The Iranian trucks pay toll on arrival in Armenia, and they are not expected to pay toll a hundred kilometers ahead as well. We expected that they (Azerbaijan Republic) would stop it (road charging) until the preparation of the additional road and that no problem would arise.”

In a meeting with his Armenian counterpart, held in Tehran in early October, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian unveiled plans for a new road map leading to the expansion of relations with Armenia at the “strategic level”.

He said Iran and Armenia have outlined a new project to revive the transit of commodities and routes for the trucks traveling between the two neighbors, saying the plan will be carried out immediately.