Pashinyan criticises Aliyev for calling Trump Route the ‘Zangezur corridor’
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has criticised Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev for using the term ‘Zangezur corridor’ when referring to the Trump Route, a plan for regional transit and infrastructure links to be managed by a yet-unnamed US company.
In his speech at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in China on Monday, Pashinyan noted that the joint declaration between Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the US signed on 8 August in the US ‘agreed on certain terminology’ — the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).
‘I believe that the use of this clarified, agreed terminology will contribute to a constructive atmosphere and the implementation of further work’, Pashinyan said.
He went on to clarify for the other attendees of the meeting that, ‘the wording used by the President of Azerbaijan is not perceived by us in the logic that we agreed on in Washington’.
Pashinyan further noted that the TRIPP ‘stems from’ his government’s Crossroads of Peace project, proposed in October 2023.
Pashinyan’s comments were referring to Aliyev’s statement offered during the same meeting, praising the potential impact of the TRIPP.
‘The Zangezur corridor will soon become another important segment of the Middle Corridor, as well as the North-South Corridor, which will contribute to enhancing peace, multilateral partnership’, Aliyev stated during his speech at the SCO summit, which also included nonmembers such as Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Armenia has rejected the wording of the term ‘Zangezur corridor’ pushed by Azerbaijan, suggesting that it implies a territorial claim against Armenia in reference to its Syunik region and demand for an extraterritorial route.
Despite the agreed upon new term — the Trump Route or TRIPP — Aliyev and Turkish officials tend to use both terms interchangeably.
The agreement on the Trump Route stems from the unprecedented summit in Washington on 8 August, which brought together Pashinyan, Aliyev, and US President Donald Trump. It resulted in a joint seven-point declaration between the three leaders outlining what had been agreed upon.
The Washington summit also disclosed the US involvement in the unblocking of a route through Armenia connecting Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan, named as TRIPP, or the Trump Route.
Aytan Farhadova
