Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan briefed Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian in a telephone call on Monday about the Aug. 8 peace summit hosted by President Donald Trump in Washington.

Pashinyan is believed to have sought to allay Tehran’s fears concerning a proposed land corridor running from Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave bordering Turkey that would potentially cut Iran off from strategic Black Sea trading routes. 

A yet-to-be-identified US company will operate the route under Armenian sovereignty on a 99-year lease under the terms of a document that was signed by Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev under Trump’s auspices. The corridor is expected to cleave through Armenian territory bordering Iran. Tehran has repeatedly declared it a red line, staging war games on the border with Armenia to ram the message home.

The deal is the latest in a series of geostrategic setbacks suffered by the Islamic Republic since Israel began attacking its proxies in Syria and Lebanon and then struck Iran itself, an escalation leading to a 12-day war in June. The United States intervened, striking Iranian nuclear facilities with bunker busters for the first time before brokering a ceasefire.