9 October 2024
Armenian National Security Service border troops will take over full control of the checkpoint on the Armenia-Iran border from Russian troops from January 2025, with Armenian border guards also serving alongside the Russian contingent along the borders with Iran and Turkey.
The agreement was announced by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s spokesperson following a meeting between Pashinyan and Russian President Vladimir Putin on 8 October on the sidelines of the Council of Heads of State of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
During the meeting, Pashinyan expressed gratitude for the services provided by the Russian border guards at the border control point between Armenia and Iran. Russian troops have been stationed along the Armenian-Iran border since Armenia's independence in 1991.
This decision is part of an apparent ongoing effort by Armenia to decrease reliance on Russian military troops and border guards to protect Armenian security.
In March, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan commented on the presence of Russian border guards at Armenia’s Zvartnots International Airport, noting that their presence at ‘a number of points’ in Armenia, including the airport, ‘was intended as support for the newly independent Armenian state’. He emphasised that their presence was only designed to last until Armenia was able to build its own institutional capabilities.
Russian troops officially left the airport on 1 August.
Previously, in May, following another Pashinyan and Putin meeting, a decision was made to withdraw Russian military and border guards from several regions bordering Azerbaijan and its exclave Nakhchivan. The Russian guards were originally stationed there in 2020 at the request of Armenia.
The decision to withdraw these troops followed an announcement by the head of the EU Mission in Armenia, Markus Ritter, that Russian border guards had blocked European observers in February 2024 from entering Nerkin Hand, in Armenia’s southern Syunik Province, where clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan took place earlier that month.
In April an agreement was reached between Armenia and Azerbaijan on partial delimitation of the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.
It comes as part of a wider shift by Armenia away from Russia and towards the West.
According to Tigran Grigoryan, a political analyst and the head of the Regional Center for Democracy and Security in Yerevan, these decisions are being made now because there is a window of opportunity, which Azerbaijan also used to achieve the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from Nagorno-Karabakh.
In terms of the changes in border patrol specifically, Grigoryan told OC Media that it was only ‘the beginning of the process’, considering that there was no particular opposition from the Russian side.
‘We can expect the complete removal of the border guards from at least the Armenian-Iran border. At this stage, I think the problems are of a technical nature, the Armenian side simply does not have enough trained personnel to guard the entire border alone’.
Grigoryan also saw these developments, especially in regards to the border with Iran, in the context of ongoing Armenia-Azerbaijan peace negotiations, particularly in terms of the ‘Zangezur corridor’.
‘As we know, every time when it comes to opening that southern communication, to the claims of the Armenian side that there should be no Russian presence, or any foreign presence, they [Russia and Azerbaijan] answer that that border is controlled by the Russians, what is the problem that security is provided by the Russians as well?’
However Grigoryan added that the withdrawal of the Russian military base in Armenia was a ‘more complicated issue’ considering its stronger contractual base.
