It was announced after Pashinian’s talks with Aliyev hosted by U.S. President Donald Trump on August 8 that Armenia will give the United States exclusive rights to a road, a railway and possibly energy supply lines that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave through a key Armenian region. They would be part of a transit corridor to be named the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).
Although key practical modalities of this arrangement remain unknown, Pashinian’s domestic critics claim that it would lead to the kind of an extraterritorial “Zangezur corridor” that has been sought by Azerbaijan ever since the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Pashinian and other Armenian officials have denied this.
Aliyev referred to the TRIPP as the “Zangezur corridor” in a September 1 speech at a Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in China. Pashinian, who also attended the summit, publicly objected to that “vocabulary.”
Aliyev stuck to the term in comments reported by Azerbaijani state media on Tuesday.
“I have no doubt that the Zangezur Corridor, as one of the routes of the Middle Corridor, will play an important role in the near future as a major transport link connecting the continents,” he said.
“The implementation of the Zangezur Corridor project initiated by Ilham Aliyev serves to expand regional cooperation,” Azerbaijani parliament speaker Sahiba Gafarova said for her part.
One of Gafarova’s deputies, Ali Ahmedov, said that during the Washington talks Baku secured an “international guarantee” for the launch of the project. The corridor should therefore be named after Aliyev, he said.
A joint declaration signed by Aliyev and Pashinian at the White House on August 8 says only that Armenia will ensure “unhindered communication” between Nakhichevan and the rest of Azerbaijan through its Syunik province. Pashinian said late last month that Armenian, Azerbaijani and U.S. officials will meet in September to try to work out details of this arrangement.
Government delegations from Armenia and Azerbaijan met at an undisclosed section of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border on Friday. The Armenian Foreign Ministry told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Tuesday that U.S. officials will visit Yerevan soon for talks on the TRIPP and other issues of mutual interest. It gave no dates for the visit.
