Pashinian said that Armenia, Azerbaijan and the United States have yet to work out key details of what they agreed to call the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).
“All answers to questions relating to the TRIPP and opening of regional communication routes are addressed within the framework of five principles,” he told reporters.
The principles include respect for Armenian sovereignty over the Syunik province through which the TRIPP would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave.
Baku says that Armenian border and customs officers must not check people and cargo moving to and from Nakhichevan. Pashinian signaled on September 10 readiness to meet this demand. He said modern technology will be used to exclude physical contact between Armenian officers and Azerbaijani travelers.
The Armenian premier was vague on the subject on Thursday, declining to answer relevant questions. Nor did he explicitly say whether Azerbaijan would be able to transport weapons and military personnel through Syunik.
“In our reality, there is a general problem that we constantly talk about others, not about ourselves,” he said. “When we decide that we want to transport weapons through Nakhichevan to [the Syunik town of] Meghri and vice versa, we will open negotiations on such a topic. If we decide that we do not want to transport them through Nakhichevan to Syunik and bring them back, then we will adopt an appropriate formula.”
Armenian opposition leaders maintain that during his August 8 talks with U.S. President Donald Trump and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Pashinian agreed to open the kind of an extraterritorial corridor that is sought by Baku.
A joint declaration adopted by the three leaders at the White House commits Yerevan to giving Washington exclusive rights to the transit route. A senior U.S. diplomat visited Yerevan last week to discuss with Armenian officials practical modalities of that arrangement. The State Department official, Brendan Hanrahan, said the U.S. is planning to allocate $145 million for its implementation.