Tehran §

Capital watching the Syunik border

Tehran is the Iranian decision centre for South Caucasus policy. Iran's concern is not only ethnic kinship with Azerbaijanis in north-western Iran or historical memory of lost khanates. Its immediate strategic concern is that the Armenia-Iran border through Syunik remain intact and under Armenian sovereignty.

Tehran has repeatedly signalled opposition to any extraterritorial corridor that would alter effective control over southern Armenia. It supports transit and regional trade when they do not change borders or bring Turkish-Azerbaijani strategic depth directly across Iran's northern frontier. This puts Iran in partial alignment with Armenia on the corridor issue, even while Tehran maintains relations with Baku and Moscow. editorial

For the atlas, Tehran is the reminder that corridor language is never just transport engineering. It is regional order, border legitimacy and balance of power.