“From September 29 to October 11, the [Customs and Border Protection] team will work with the Armenian Border Guard (ABG) to assess capabilities and identify areas for improvement through the Capability Gap Analysis Process (CGAP),” the embassy said in a statement. “This proven methodology helps strengthen border security by pinpointing needs and guiding strategic investments.”
“We’re proud to support this first step in implementing our Crossroads of Peace Capacity Building Partnership, signed August 8 at the White House by President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian,” added the statement.
The statement gave no other details of the CBP team’s mission. Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS), to which the national border guard service is subordinate, has issued no statements on it so far.
During the August 8 talks, Pashinian pledged to give the United States exclusive rights to what will be called the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP). Key details of the transit arrangement remain unknown.
A joint declaration signed at the White House by Trump, Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev says only that Armenia will ensure “unhindered communication” between the Nakhichevan exclave and the rest of Azerbaijan through its Syunik province. A separate memorandum of understanding signed by Pashinian and Trump does not explicitly mention the TRIPP. Visiting Yerevan last month, a senior U.S. State Department official said Washington is planning allocate $145 million for its creation.
Armenia - A view of Armenia's border with Iran, April 12, 2025.
Speaking during the signing ceremony, Trump appeared to confirm reports that the U.S. government will secure a long-term lease on the transit routes passing through Syunik. According to unnamed U.S. officials quoted by Western media, Washington will then sublease the land to a consortium of private companies.
Armenian officials have implicitly denied this, however. In an interview with the Polish broadcaster TPV World publicized on Friday, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said the TRIPP will be built and operated by a U.S.-Armenian “consortium.”
“This consortium, in its turn, can hire a third company or companies to implement this or that, or provide this or that service for the whole passage,” he said.
Mirzoyan also said: “We have already started discussions with our American counterparts. I assume we can finalize this process in the coming months, and then construction should take place.”
The transit corridor would run along Armenia’s vital border with Iran. Tehran fears that it could pose a threat to the border and lead to U.S. security presence in the area. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke out against any “outsourcing of regional issues” to outside powers when he visited Yerevan on August 19.
Pashinian has made ambiguous statements about border crossing procedures that would be put in place for Azerbaijani travelers and cargo. His domestic critics maintain that the TRIPP amounts to the kind of an extraterritorial “Zangezur corridor” that has been sought by Azerbaijan ever since the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Aliyev again echoed the Armenian opposition claims in a speech at the UN General Assembly in New York last week. Pashinian complained about that when he addressed the assembly two days later.