ArmeniaNow In Tehran on February 8 railway department heads of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia signed a package of agreements on the implementation of the North-South railway corridor project.

Yet in 2002, the intergovernmental agreement signed by Russia, Iran and India came into force on the creation of the corridor. It envisaged these three countries’ support of a transit transport communication from North Europe to the Arabian Sea and Indian ports through the territory of Russia, Iran and the Persian Gulf to India.

However, the problem is that Russia and Iran have no shared border through which the laying of the railroad bed would be possible. And the only country that borders with both Russia and Iran is Azerbaijan.

On the other hand, Azerbaijan is in a state of war with Armenia – Russia’s strategic partner in the Caucasus, which is also in good neighborly relations with Iran.

So the situation at hand was not the simplest, when on one pan of geopolitical scales was an extremely important project with participation of major countries, and on the other – the degree of confidential relations with (the much smaller) Armenia.

This became one of the reasons why for two years the project was frozen. “Defrosting” of the project was related to the activated Azeri separatist movements in Iran’s northern provinces, where around 30 million Azeris live.

In September of 2004, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said: “Persians are almost a minority in their country. There is only 52 percent of them. At the same time more Azeris live in Tabriz than in Azerbaijan itself.”

In response to that statement by the American diplomat the then Iranian president Mohammad Khatami said:”Iran is against the US military presence and that of non-regional forces in the region. We are against Washington’s intentions to place American military bases in the Caspian region under the pretence of cooperation with Azerbaijan.”

It was in that period that Moscow and Tehran made an attempt to tie Azerbaijan to their geopolitical projects. In 2004 in Moscow, Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan came to an agreement on building a railroad bed Astara-Rasht-Qavzin, which would link Russia and Iran through the territory of Azerbaijan.

This trilateral consortium became part of North-South transport corridor with the final exit to Indian ports.

The news on Russia-Azerbaijan consortium was met in Armenia with great disapproval. The country was in blockade, whereas the country responsible for the blockade – Azerbaijan – was turning into a most important communication junction.

The situation changed due to China's intervention in the issue. In October 2004, Beijing and Tehran signed an agreement on hydrocarbon, immediately followed by Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing’s statement that his country would not support the UN Security Council’s actions against Iran’s atomic energy program.

Shortly after this, in 2005, Russia and Iran signed an agreement providing for Russian nuclear fuel supply to Iranian Nuclear Power Plant in Bushehr.

On the backdrop of the support shown to Iran by two permanent members of the UN Security Council – Russia and China – it became clear that there much-talked-about air strike of the American forces at Iran was not going to happen. The railway project once again entered a “freezing stage”.

This created favorable conditions for the build-up of efforts in Armenia's direction. Tehran and Yerevan signed a main contract on gas supply and an agreement on the construction of a gas pipeline.

In March, 2007, presidents of Armenia and Iran Robert Kocharian and Ahmadinejad reached a final agreement on the construction Iran-Armenia railroad of construction.

And now, like a bolt from the blue, came the news about the trilateral agreement signed by Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia on the South-North project.

On the one hand it increases Azerbaijan’s weight in the region, however, on the other, it minimizes the chances of Azerbaijan resuming hostilities over Nagorno Karabakh – the possibility of which has been frequently voiced lately- as it would have to maintain stability to be part of the railway project.

Head of the Iranian Railway Department Abdulali Sahib Mohammadi, stated after the signing ceremony, that the sides would be working jointly on the implementation of Qavzin-Rasht-Astar railroad construction project.

Time will show whether another political event will freeze the project this time.