Iran reportedly has closed its roads to Turkish trucks, a Turkish official told the Russian RIA Novosti news agency. The news comes days after Azerbaijani media claimed that Iran had closed its airspace to Azerbaijani military planes flying to Nakhichevan.
Ozcan Alash, the head of the Turkish Association for the Development of Trade with Iran, told RIA Novosti that initially Tehran introduced a ban on the passage of Turkish trucks then Ankara reportedly made a decision to halt entry of Iranian trucks into Turkey as retaliation.
Baku and Tehran are in a diplomatic row over Azerbaijani forces stopping and taxing Iranian trucks en-route to Armenia on the Goris-Kapan Highway. Azerbaijani forces also arrested two Iranian truck drivers last month. The rift has escalated due to disparaging comments from official Baku, especially Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who late last month accused Iran of holding military drills near Azerbaijan’s border as a response to the highway blockade issue.
Ankara has voiced support for Baku’s policies, especially its moves on the transport link between Iran and Armenia.
“The trade turnover between Iran and Turkey has been completely suspended due to the tense situation on the border between Iran and Azerbaijan,” Alash told RIA Novosti.
He clarified that the current situation could negatively impact trade between Turkey and Iran, which has already plummeted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Iran is our good friend in the regiona and they know the dirty hand of the otto turk and azeri’s now for more action and we shall overcome
Yes it is true that Iran and Armenia are friendly neighbors and have had cordial relations for centuries. But I would argue that Iran does what it does first and foremost for its own self-interest. It so happens that Iran’s interests and concerns in the region today overlaps those of Armenia’s. The Turks, that includes pseudo-Turkish Azerbaijanis, are the common enemies of Iran and Armenia. It is these common enemies that bring Iran and Armenia together. I call this relationship more like “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” When Armenia’s territories, those sharing borders with Iran, are threatened by the enemy they also affect Iran directly because the enemy has eyes on Iran’s territory and could destabilize Iran through separatist movement by some of the Turkish-speaking Persians in Iran’s northwest even though most of that population considers itself Iranian and wants nothing to do with those in artificial Azerbaijan republic. Iran is now at the highest state of alertness, and conducting military drills, because Iran’s arch-enemy Israel has set up base in artificial Azerbaijan and has done so by selling advanced modern weapons to the enemy, being used not against Iran but Armenia, to exploit favors from our enemy to get close to Iran for future attacks on Iran. This means the interests of the Turks and Israelis now overlap and together they are much bigger threat to Iran than ever before but all this is happening at Armenia’s expense.
If Iran had helped Armenia in the last war imposed on the Armenia by half a dozen terrorist nations neither Iran nor Armenia would be in this situation today. Iran did not help Armenia when Armenia needed their help the most. I think that is because Iran always considered the Armenian Liberated regions in the conflict zone not Turkish or pseudo-Turkish Azerbaijani but as an “Islamic territory”, whatever the heck that means, that once was under their control or occupation. Iran and Armenia today are tied together because of a common enemy more than anything else. Any threat to Armenia is a threat to Iran because Armenia is a barrier that protects Iran from the Turkic horde. As far as Israel is concerned, they will sacrifice anyone for their political agenda. They preach against genocide while arming a terrorist state to commit genocide. This is hypocrisy at its best. Their leadership portrays itself as moral but morality is what they lack the most! They have sold their morals for a fistful of petrodollars!
Its a great pleasure to sit on a couch and contemplate about imaginable “best friends”. How about looking a bit further that Armenia is not a country but its a piece of uncontrolled land and collection of low moral people with highly corrupted local power.