On September 11, the Azerbaijani police post, which was established on September 9 on the border section of the road between the Armenian cities of Goris and Kapan, opened. According to the Ombudsman of Armenia Arman Tatoyan, Azerbaijanis stop trucks with Iranian numbers and demand payment from the drivers. On September 15, the arrest of two Iranian truckers transporting cement was publicised. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan stated that they illegally crossed the border. At the same time, cars with Armenian numbers are not searched, but residents of the border regions of Armenia are trying to use an alternative, unfinished road.

The Azerbaijani military took control of a part of the Goris-Kapan highway following the 44-day battle in the fall of 2020. The territories bordering with Armenia in this area were previously controlled by the authorities of the unrecognised Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

The detention of Iranian drivers became a demonstration of Azerbaijan's position

It was not possible to obtain information about the two Iranian citizens or their charges from Azerbaijani law enforcement agencies. An employee of the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs said he had no information on this issue. Representatives of the State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan, whose employees participated in the arrest of the drivers, were unavailable for comment.

The actions of Iranian drivers may fall under the articles of the Code of Administrative Offenses of Azerbaijan concerning responsibility for violations of customs rules, suggested Khalid Agaliyev, an independent legal expert, a lawyer at the Institute of Media Law.

In particular, he said, they may be charged with Article 479 of the Administrative Code, "moving goods and vehicles across the customs border of the Republic of Azerbaijan outside customs control" because they bypassed official customs points when they entered Azerbaijani territory.

Another alleged violation may be “concealment of goods and vehicles from customs control,” that is, the use of hiding places or other methods that complicate the detection of goods (Article 480 of the Administrative Code) "with fraudulent use of documents or means of identification." Drivers can also be involved for "failure to declare or inaccurate declaration of goods and vehicles" (Article 482 of the Administrative Code).

"All these four types of violations entail the same punishment - confiscation of goods and vehicles that were the direct objects of an administrative violation, or the imposition of a fine in the amount of forty to sixty per cent of their value," Agaliyev said.

According to Agaliyev, for these misdemeanours, drivers may be subject to short-term detention and, after a punishment has been imposed, released. Their fine can be paid by the full or partial confiscation of the goods transported.

However, according to him, article 209 of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan "evasion of customs duties" depending on the value of the transported goods can also be applied to drivers. This article applies if the evasion of customs payments caused the Azerbaijani state significant damage, that is, if the amount of unpaid customs payments exceeded 20 thousand manats (about 11.7 thousand dollars), the lawyer explained. Under this article, in addition to monetary fines, drivers may face from one to 5 years in prison.

“I think that the drivers will be formally brought to administrative responsibility and will be quickly released if they have not already been released.”

In accordance with Article 210 of the Tax Code of Azerbaijan, vehicles of foreign states entering and leaving the territory of Azerbaijan are subject to road tax. "According to the code, vehicles are subject to road tax, as well as a state duty for obtaining a permit regulating international road transport in the territory of Azerbaijan in accordance with Article 24 of the Law On State Duty," the State Customs Committee said on 13 September connection with the passage of Iranian cars along the Goris - Kapan highway.

Tehran is not interested in aggravating relations with Baku and Yerevan

Checks of Iranian heavy trucks and even the detention of drivers will not have a serious impact on the development of relations between Baku and Tehran, said Mehman Aliyev, director of the Turan news agency. "In fact, these measures are directed against Armenia, not Iran. All that has been recently undertaken at the border is pressure on Yerevan in order to induce it to sign a peace treaty as soon as possible, providing for the mutual recognition of territorial integrity, and start delimiting the borders with subsequent demarcation, as well as the opening of transport communications. On the other hand, the difficulty in the passage of Iranian vehicles creates problems for the supply of the Armenian population in Karabakh, which will also emphasise the futility of ignoring the advantages of reintegration with Azerbaijan," Aliyev explained.

He specified that the situation "also harms the interests of Iranian business." However, these losses are nothing compared to the benefits from the conclusion of a peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia and the opening of transport communications. “The opening of the Zangezur corridor will allow Iran to receive direct rail links through Nakhchivan, the Mehri region of Armenia to Azerbaijan and further to the Russian Federation and through it to Europe. Such a railway connection was in operation during the Soviet period but was interrupted due to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. In addition, Iran through Nakhchivan and in another direction through Armenia will receive a railway line to Georgia to its Black Sea ports," Mehman Aliyev said.

He drew attention to the fact that the Iranian side did not express any protests against Azerbaijan. "There are no notes of protest, harsh statements in the media. Twice the Iranian ambassador to Baku met with Azerbaijani presidential aide Hikmet Hajiyev in recent days, and the parties limited themselves to short messages on Twitter while maintaining a positive background," Aliyev said.

On September 13, Hikmet Hajiyev met with the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Iran to Azerbaijan, Seyid Abbas Mousavi. Afterwards Hajiyev wrote a message on Twitter. "Thank you for visiting us. We held a fruitful debate on the issues on our agenda and are considering ways to overcome them," the assistant to the President of Azerbaijan stressed at the meeting. "I am glad to meet with the aide to the President of Azerbaijan, Hikmet Hajiyev. We discussed with him the latest state of our bilateral relations and issues of common concern," the Iranian ambassador wrote in turn, quoted by Azeri Daily. They met again on September 16, the newspaper reported. "For the second time this week, I had the opportunity to meet with Hikmet Hajiyev, assistant to the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. During our warm conversations, we discussed the current situation and plans for the future, as well as other issues of mutual interest."