Day 201: Jolfa (جلفا)

Oct 21 - Try to sort out laundry in the morning, as it has been a week since we’ve had time to deal with it. But the laundromat nearby is closed (it is Friday), so are thwarted. Head north and slightly west, through some hilly terrain and flats. Bare mountains loom in the distance, the view obscured by thick dust clouds. A constant dry wind picks up the dust and renders everything a hazy brown. Some of it is coming from Iraq, where newly dried lake beds have become an endless source of the stuff. Damming of the Euphrates by Türkiye over the past 20 years has reduced the flow through northern Iraq, cutting off the annual supply of water to those bodies.

Drive past the city of Jolfa (not to be confused with the Armenian Jolfa neighborhood in Esfahan, Day 194). This is no coincidence: During Safavid times, many Armenians were forcibly moved from southern Armenia to other parts of Iran. Jolfa, just south of the Iranian border, lies in a region that was once part of Armenia. Today, Jolfa is in a spot close to the borders of Armenia, Türkiye, and Nakhichevan (the western enclave of Azerbaijan). For this reason, it has become a duty-free port called Aras, with shopping malls and factories, all benefiting from tax-free sales. Many of the products in the malls are Turkish, and the clothing is sought out by Iranians for its quality. To reach this area, one passes through several checkpoints, where vehicles are sometimes inspected to see if any undo volume of merchandise was purchased.

We head up the canyon of the Araz River that forms the border between Iran and Nakhichevan (and also Iran and Armenia further downstream).

Further north, the valley closes in and becomes very scenic. The river forms a thin ribbon of green in the dry landscape. Stop at the small Chupan Chapel, an Armenian church built in the 16th Century and restored in 1836

On to the main objective of today’s drive, the St. Stepanos Monastery. It was first built in the 9th century and renovated during Safavid times (with minor repair several times since then).

Now for some regional geopolitics! In highly condensed form, anyway. This is relevant only because we are in the region in question, and it adds to an understanding of the complicated relationship between countries here. First, a look at the map below:

Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan are the same country but separated geographically by Armenia, thus severely hampering the economic development of Nakhchivan. This could be solved by agreements with Armenia to allow transport across its territory, but Armenia and Azerbaijan have been fighting over the Nagorno-Karabakh region and thus are very bad neighbors who agree on very little.

In this fight, Türkiye always sides with Azerbaijan, because (1) it has a long history of conflict with Armenia for reasons I will probably get into in a few weeks, and (2) Türkiye is big on the idea of ‘Pan-Turkism’, where six nations who have self-identified as ‘Turkic’ in cultural leanings want a land bridge connecting them all (Türkiye, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan). These countries form the Organization of Turkic States (OTC).

A solution has been proposed, of a corridor that would allow Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan to connect markets without onerous customs checks through Armenia or Iran. This is the Zangezur Corridor and is (according to Azerbaijan) supported by a past treaty between them and Armenia. The latter, however, says they did not agree to a “corridor”, which implies a sort of ownership, one that would take strategic territory from Armenia.

Now, Armenia currently has a tentative “corridor” of their own, which links Armenia proper to a landlocked bit of land they administer in the contentious Nagorno-Karabakh region (shown in beige on the map). This is called the Lachin Corridor. So, a further solution was to allow Armenia official ownership over the Lachin Corridor, in exchange for losing a piece of land to allow for the Zangezur Corridor. In order to not cut Armenia into pieces, this corridor would be placed at Armenia’s border with Iran, where an old Soviet railway line is that could be re-opened. A part of this railway line is shown in one of the above photos.

Sounds good! But of course not, because in this squabble, Iran also has a geopolitical agenda. Iran’s relationship with Armenia is quite solid, so the last thing they want is to lose their common border (bottom center on above map). Plus, they would lose trade through places like Jolfa, which has a bridge to Nakhchivan.

In response to the position of Armenia and Iran, Azerbaijan has previously stated that if they could not find a treaty solution to the problem, they would solve it ‘by force’.

These sorts of weird, convoluted border situations happen in Europe, but because of the EU and general amicable relations between countries, they do not turn into this sort of mess. There is almost no trust between any of the Caucasus nations, hence agreements are always viewed with highly skeptical eyes.