Iran-India-Armenia: What is behind the trilateral partnership format? Soft balancing in South Caucasus

In April 2023, India's deputy foreign ministers of Iran and Armenia held a round of political consultations in Yerevan in an attempt to boost the trilateral format of cooperation in the future. The formation of this tripartite format has several key strategic implications that could disrupt the geopolitical balance in the South Caucasus.

The trilateral dialogue between states is intensifying amid the strengthening as Armenia's arch-rival Azerbaijan, Pakistan, and Turkey have been intensifying cooperation in recent years.

Therefore, growing cooperation between Iran, Armenia and India can be seen as part of Tehran’s effort to restore the balance of power in the South Caucasus after the Second Karabakh War in 2020 between Azerbaijan and Armenia. While the results of the war gave Azerbaijan an upper hand in terms of military superiority, Armenia faced political instability and growing violence within.

As Armenia struggles to grapple with multiple challenges – to proceed with peace negotiations over Karabakh, to preserve domestic stability, and to survive the Russia – West confrontation, there is an acute need for reassessing Armenian foreign, defence, and security policy.

The old schemes no longer work, and Yerevan needs to look for new partners and partnerships. In this vein, Armenia found itself lagging behind Azerbaijan in developing bilateral and multilateral cooperation formats, namely Azerbaijan-Georgia-Türkiye, Azerbaijan-Türkiye-Pakistan, Azerbaijan-Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan-Russia-Iran.

Until now, Armenia's regional partnerships were limited to Armenia-Russia, Armenia-Greece, Armenia-Cyprus, and Armenia-Iran formats, with few prospects. However, collaboration with India and Iran simultaneously offers Armenia new prospects as both countries are interested in a strong Armenia and are against Turkish domination over the South Caucasus.

Notably, Iran’s staunch anti-Turkish and anti-Azerbaijani positions in the post-war period strained relations between Tehran-Baku, though they deepened the Tehran-Yerevan partnership. Iran inevitably became Armenia’s main security guarantor, whereas traditional security patron Russia is distracted by the war in Ukraine and the recent mutiny orchestrated by Wagner PMC.

Bilateral relations between the three countries have been robust, with high-level engagement in recent times. Both Armenian foreign and defence ministers have visited India, with the Armenian foreign minister, Ararat Mirzoyan, visiting India in March 2023, the Minister of Defence Suren Papikyan visiting in April 2022, and EAM Jaishankar visiting the country in October 2021.

Close partnership with India and Iran opens new horizons for Armenia to bolster its involvement in transit projects, namely the North-South Caucasus and the Persian Gulf-Black Sea trade routes. Iran has played a central role in establishing transit routes to the Black Sea region since 2016.

As a result, Iran hopes to establish a "transit balance" in the South Caucasus as part of its "balanced foreign policy approach," explicitly using the INSTC and the Persian Gulf–Black Sea Corridor to further cement its influence in the region.

In this vein, it is fair to note that Iran’s well-known Port of Chabahar, in the Sistan and Baluchistan province of southeastern Iran, represents the transit and commercial bridge between Iran, India and Armenia as it is the only Iranian port with direct access to the Indian Ocean. The port has the potential to serve as a gateway for India to access Central Asia and Afghanistan while also providing Iran with an alternative trade route to the Persian Gulf.

As such, the trilateral political consultations between the ministries of foreign affairs of the three countries held in Yerevan are of the utmost importance. Armenia sees Iran as one of the few countries capable of assisting it in participating in geopolitically essential transit routes and getting some financial dividends.

Also, Iran is the only deterrent factor at this stage that prevents the Azerbaijan-Türkiye tandem from establishing the land route corridor via Armenia's Syunik province to link Azerbaijan with the Nakhchivan exclave. Iran's narrative is that establishing a corridor link through Armenia's territory will lead to the closure of the Iran-Armenia border while increasing the Baku-Ankara axis in its immediate boundaries, which poses "threats" to Tehran's interests.

Moreover, Iran has its own plans of establishing trade routes via Syunik province, and partnership with India fosters this idea. For India, the new format with Iran and Armenia eases its access to the Caucasus and farther to Russia amid increasing trade turnover between Delhi-Moscow at the cost of deteriorating relations with the major Western countries.

Nevertheless, given India’s limited influence in the Caucasus, and Armenia, Iran’s inability at this stage to significantly shape the geopolitical landscape in the South Caucasus, it is unlikely that Iran-India-Armenia trilateral format will have long-term repercussions for all three states.