A Milli Majlis deputy, political scientist Asim Mollazade, told Vestnik Kavkaza that the main result of the deal with Iran for Azerbaijan is the guarantee of freedom from nuclear weapons in the region. "We hope that now we will be able to resolve the conflicts in the South Caucasus in the near future," Mollazade said.
He also praised the prospect of Iran joining Azerbaijani energy projects. "Of course, everything will depend on the development of the situation in the region, but Azerbaijan is always open for cooperation and prefers partnership rather than confrontation," he noted.
A Georgian political analyst, Josef Tsiskarishvili, in his turn, described the future lifting of sanctions against the Islamic Republic "the first step to establish real good-neighborly relations between Georgia and Iran." "Being close to such a huge country, we could not properly develop economic and political ties with Iran because of the international sanctions for a long time," he said.
The expert noted that, initially, the Western countries were against cooperation between Georgia and Iran, "perceiving this as a betrayal". "Now this approach no longer exists, and we can say with great confidence that Iranian investment in Georgia will increase and Iran is likely to get visa-free entry for its citizens to Georgia," Josef Tsiskarishvili concluded.
The Director of the Armenian branch of the CIS Institute, Alexander Makarov, said that "the questions that arise are likely to be about how intensified economic relations between Armenia and Iran can be in terms of the implementation of various kinds of large-scale integration projects involving Armenia," he said.
"Armenia is interested in construction of railway communication with Iran as one of the possible links of the Silk Road project, but the difficulty lies in the need to find investors," Alexander Markarov stressed.
