Pashinian again claimed that the agreements reached by him and Azerbaijani President Ilham mean that “peace has been established between Armenia and Azerbaijan.”
“Following the Peace Summit in Washington on August 8, 2018, initiated by President Trump, we adopted a declaration with President Aliyev which states that Armenia and Azerbaijan recognize the need to chart a path to a bright future not predetermined by past conflicts in accordance with the UN Charter and the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration,” he said.
The declaration also calls for a U.S.-administered corridor that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave through Armenia. It is due to be named the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP). Aliyev and Pashinian have offered differing interpretations of the transit arrangement and its implications.
“The TRIPP project opens up new export and import opportunities for the [Commonwealth of Independent States] countries as well,” Pashinian told Russian President Vladimir Putin and other CIS heads of state.
Although the TRIPP deal is seen by analysts as another blow to Russian presence in Armenia, Russia’s public reaction to it has been cautious. Moscow has said that it must not be at odds with Armenia’s membership in the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), a Russian-led trade bloc, and the presence of Russian border guards along the Armenian-Iranian border.
Pashinian also pointed on Friday to an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty that was initialed during the talks hosted by Trump at the White House.
“I hope and am confident that we will sign and ratify this agreement in the near future,” he said.
Aliyev makes that conditional on a change of Armenia’s constitution. While rejecting this precondition in public, Pashinian has pledged to try enact a new constitution through a referendum. He indicated last month that the referendum will not be held before or during the next Armenian parliamentary elections due in June 2026.
The draft treaty publicized on August 11 says that Armenia and Azerbaijan will be “guided” by the Alma-Ata Declaration in which newly independent ex-Soviet republics recognized each other’s Soviet-era borders. Pashinian has portrayed this reference as a key guarantee of peace.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry downplayed last year the legal significance of that declaration, saying that it “has nothing to do with the question of where the borders of CIS member states lie and which territories belong to which country.” Yerevan deplored that statement at the time, saying it “may mean that Azerbaijan has territorial claims to Armenia.”
Pashinian’s domestic critics say that the treaty touted by Pashinian will therefore not preclude a future Azerbaijani aggression against Armenian even if Baku agrees to sign it.