In comments publicized on Wednesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan reiterated that Ankara will not open the Turkish-Armenian border and establish diplomatic relations with Yerevan before the signing of an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty initialed in August. He also reaffirmed support for Baku’s position making the signing conditional on a change of the Armenian constitution and the opening of the “Zangezur corridor.”
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian countered that under the terms of Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, the transit corridor connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave through Armenia’s strategic Syunik province will be named the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).
“The terminology that we have not accepted, defined or agreed upon cannot be applicable to the Republic of Armenia,” Pashinian told reporters. “If anyone uses it with a different logic, it is not applicable to the Republic of Armenia.”
Pashinian’s domestic critics maintain that the TRIPP amounts to the kind of an extraterritorial corridor that would compromise Armenian sovereignty over Syunik. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly echoed the Armenian opposition claims, ignoring Yerevan’s objections to his continuing use of the term “Zangezur corridor.” Pashinian indicated last month that he will stop paying attention to Aliyev’s rhetoric on the issue.
Meanwhile, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan disagreed with Fidan’s remark that Yerevan would not have an incentive to reach a peace deal acceptable to Baku in case of an unconditional normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations. Mirzoyan said that the normalization can only have a positive impact on the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process.
“Armenia is making sincere efforts in both directions,” he told the Armenpress news agency.