Robert Kocharyan: The only country that is not interested in the  transformation of the region is Iran

ArmInfo. Iran is not a country that can be stopped by a threat, and Armenia should use this to protect the south of the country. Second President of Armenia  Robert Kocharian expressed a similar opinion at a press conference on  September 28.

The second president of Armenia stated that today the Syunik region  of Armenia is in the most vulnerable position, which both Turkey and  Azerbaijan have their eyes on, and the only country that is also not  interested in transformation  of the region is Iran. Kocharyan drew  attention to the fact that the only country that, out of its own  interests, is ready to go beyond statements in case of a threat to  Syunik is Iran.  According to him, however, nothing has been done in  this direction by the Armenian side in these two years.

"We should have at least held a couple of exercises with Iran, namely  in Syunik. A certain legal basis should have been created with Iran  during this period. This will be the strongest deterrent for  Azerbaijan, because Iran is not a state that can be threatened if it  pursues its national interests," the second president said.

At the same time, he stressed that he knows that there were such  conversations with Iran in May 2021, but then, the Armenian side  froze everything and there was no continuation. "By the way, the  initiative was not ours. But, and now it is not too late. I believe  that here we must take some important steps. We need to persuade  Russia. Yes, I'm not talking about the benefits from the CSTO - that  would be another stupid "There are agreements within the organization  that are important for the acquisition of weapons. We need, I think,  to supplement our security with new components. This needs to be  explained to the Russian side.  Some kind of trilateral format can be  created, since interests coincide, and there are quite warm relations  between Russia and Iran today," he added. Kocharyan.

In his opinion, this can be explained to the USA as well, of course,  they will not like it. "But, they offer an alternative? They don't!  The situation is like this, and I believe that we need to be more  courageous, including in relations with the outside world," Kocharyan  summed up.