A relevant U.S.-Armenian agreement was made public following talks in Washington held by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan. It officially confirmed that Yerevan will give a special company controlled by the U.S. government long-term exclusive rights to what will be called the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian agreed to the transit arrangement during his talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev hosted by U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House last August. A joint declaration signed by the three leaders said that Armenia will ensure “unhindered communication” between the Nakhichevan exclave and the rest of Azerbaijan through its Syunik province.
According to the “implementation framework” for the TRIPP released after Rubio’s talks with Mirzoyan, a U.S.-Armenian company will build a railway, a road, energy supply lines and other infrastructure along the transit corridor and manage and collect revenues from them for at least 49 years.
“Armenia intends to offer the United States a 74 percent share and to hold itself a 26 percent share in the TRIPP Development Company,” reads the 8-page document. “This arrangement is expected to be extended for an additional term of 50 years with a grant of additional equity to the government of Armenia bringing its share to 49 percent.”
It emphasizes that Armenia will have full “authority over border control and customs for trade and transit through the TRIPP.”
“Armenia’s sovereignty and jurisdiction over border and customs operations are absolute and non-negotiable,” it says.
Rubio made similar assurances when he briefly spoke to the press right after greeting Mirzoyan at the State Department.
“On the one hand, [the TRIPP] opens up Armenia for business and allows it to prosper economically, but it does so in a way that doesn’t in any way infringe upon the sovereignty of Armenia,” Rubio said. “There’s no sovereignty issue here; it’s respectful of their sovereignty.”
The framework publicized later in the day makes clear that the TRIPP Development Company will hire private operators that will provide “customer-facing services” such as “initial document collection for verification” and collect transit fees from cargo and individual travelers. At the same, Armenian officials are to “maintain a physical presence in all Armenian border and customs facilities,” make “final customs decisions and clearances” and handle “immigration control.”
The issue is important in the light of Azerbaijan’s demands for people and cargo transported to and from Nakhichevan to be exempt from Armenian border checks. Pashinian said in this regard in September that modern technology will be used to exclude physical contact between Armenian officers and Azerbaijani travelers.
The U.S.-Armenian document speaks of “electronic submission and processing of documentation” and calls for “differentiated processes for persons, vehicles, and goods, including between the main part of Azerbaijan and its Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic.” But it does not go into further details.
Aliyev said last week that the TRIPP amounts to the kind of an extraterritorial “Zangezur corridor” that has been demanded by him ever since the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The transit corridor would run along Armenia’s vital border with Iran. Tehran fears that it could put the Armenian-Iranian border at serious risk and lead to U.S. security presence there. Armenian opposition figures have likewise said that the TRIPP could undermine Armenian control over that part of Syunik.