Iran’s ambassador to Armenia decried Azerbaijan’s unacceptable move to levy toll from Iranian trucks on a road passing through pockets of Azerbaijan-controlled territory in southern Armenia, saying this road charging runs counter to the ceasefire deal, Tasnim reported.

In an interview with Tasnim in Yerevan, Abbas Badakhshan Zohouri said it is unfortunate that the Iranian trucks using the Goris-Kapan road have been required by Azerbaijan to pay toll.

According to the trilateral negotiations among Russia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, which resulted in a ceasefire deal between Yerevan and Baku following the most recent war over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the situation in the transit route in southern Armenia was supposed to remain unchanged until the completion of a new route, the Iranian envoy said.

He explained that the transit route has been used during the past three decades. “The Iranian trucks pay toll on arrival in Armenia, and they are not expected to pay toll a hundred kilometers ahead as well. We expected that they [i.e., Azerbaijan] would stop it [i.e., road charging] until the preparation of the additional road, and that no problem would arise,” Zohouri added.

In a meeting with his Armenian counterpart, held in Tehran in early October, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian unveiled plans for a new roadmap leading to the expansion of relations with Armenia at the “strategic level.”

He said Iran and Armenia have outlined a new project to revive the transit of commodities and routes for the trucks traveling between the two neighbors, saying the plan will be carried out immediately.