Trump is due to host Pashinian and Aliyev for peace talks at the White House. Citing unnamed U.S. officials, Reuters reported on Thursday that the three men will sign a framework agreement aimed at reaching a “concrete pathway to peace.” It said that as part of that deal, Armenia will award the U.S. “exclusive special development rights for an extended period on a transit corridor that will be named the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity.”
“The route will be operated according to Armenian law and the United States will sublease the land to a consortium for infrastructure and management,” added the news agency.
“Through commercial means, this step will unlock the region and avert further hostilities,” it quoted one of the officials as saying.
Pashinian first confirmed the transit arrangement proposed by Washington and signaled readiness to accept it during a July 16 news conference in Yerevan. He insisted that “outsourcing” management of the transport corridor connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave through Armenia’s Syunik province would not violate his country’s territorial integrity or sovereignty. He likened it to foreign companies’ long-running management of Armenia’s main international airport as well as water supply and railway networks.
Pashinian’s domestic critics shrugged off that comparison. They argued, in particular, that people arriving in at Yerevan’s Zvartnots airport run by an Argentinian company have to go through Armenian border and customs checks.
Armenian opposition leaders said the U.S. proposal, if accepted, would undermine Armenian sovereignty over Syunik and lead to the opening of the kind of an extraterritorial land corridor that is demanded by Azerbaijan as well as Turkey. One of them, Ishkhan Saghatelian, warned on July 17 that his Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) party will fight to prevent such an outcome “together with our people.”
Critics say that the U.S. control of the corridor would also put Armenia at loggerheads with Russia and neighboring Iran regarded by the Armenian opposition as the South Caucasus nation’s main natural allies. Both nations spoke out against the U.S. proposals later in July.
Syunik is the sole Armenian province bordering Iran. Hence, Tehran’s fears that the so-called “Zangezur corridor” sought by Baku and Ankara would jeopardize the Islamic Republic’s common border with Armenia.
A top adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei charged late last month that the U.S. and “certain pan-Turkist movements” want to “sever Iran’s link with the Caucasus and impose a land blockade on Iran and Russia in the region’s south.” Ali Akbar Velayati warned that Tehran will thwart their plans with a “policy of active prevention.” Velayati repeated on Monday the warning addressed to countries “in or outside the region.”
There have been no indications yet that Aliyev and Pashinian will sign on Friday an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty that was finalized by the two sides in March this year. Baku has made its signing conditional on a change of Armenia’s constitution and the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh. Yerevan has said until now that it can agree to disband the group only simultaneously with the signing of the treaty.
According to Reuters, the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders will also sign at the White House “documents requesting the dissolution of the Minsk Group.” The information, if confirmed, will be portrayed by Pashinian’s detractors as yet another unilateral concession to Baku.
