Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian pledged to give the U. S. exclusive rights to the corridor during talks with U.S. President Donald Trump and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held at the White House on August 8. Key details of what will be called the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) remain unknown.
A joint declaration by Trump, Aliyev and Pashinian says only that Armenia will ensure “unhindered communication” between Nakhichevan 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 Armenia later in August, a senior U.S. State Department official said Washington is planning to allocate $145 million for its creation. In a related development, a team of U.S. customs and immigration officials held talks with their Armenian colleagues in Yerevan last week.
Mirzoyan insisted that Yerevan and Washington have not yet reached agreements on crucial details of the transit arrangement denounced by the Armenian opposition.
“When we have a final, comprehensive understanding, we will publicize those terms,” he said. “There will be an Armenian-American joint venture that will assume responsibility for construction and further operations there.”
“All the details that still need to be clarified will be clarified and made public,” he added during a joint news conference with Finland’s visiting Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen.
The TRIPP 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.
Pashinian has made ambiguous statements about border crossing procedures that could 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 month. Pashinian complained about that when he addressed the assembly two days later.
