Trump Promises to Create the TRIPP Corridor: Aliyev and Pashinyan Will Send a "Strong Signal" to Moscow
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the 16th BRICS Summit in Kazan on October 24, 2024.
This Friday, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, U.S. President Donald Trump, and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev will hold a trilateral meeting in Washington. Before that, the White House host will hold separate meetings with the leaders of these two South Caucasus republics.
The private meeting between Pashinyan and Trump will take place at 14:30 (Moscow time 21:30) in Washington. According to information from the U.S. Department of State website, the trilateral meeting between the Armenian prime minister and the presidents of the United States and Azerbaijan is scheduled for 16:15 (Moscow time 23:15) in Washington, with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also participating.
There is currently little official information about the agenda of the meeting. The Armenian government has only announced that Prime Minister Pashinyan will hold a bilateral meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington to deepen the strategic partnership between Armenia and the United States, and to attend a trilateral meeting with President Trump and President Aliyev to support regional peace, prosperity, and economic cooperation.
On August 8, Trump posted information about the upcoming meeting on his "Truth Social" platform:
"I am looking forward to the visit of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to the White House to participate in this historic peace summit. These two countries have been in a state of war for years, resulting in thousands of deaths. Many leaders have tried to end this war without success until Trump appeared."
He said that the United States will also sign bilateral agreements with Armenia and Azerbaijan "to fully unlock the potential of the South Caucasus region and jointly achieve economic opportunities."
"I am proud of these brave leaders who are doing the right thing for the great people of Azerbaijan and Armenia. This will be a historic day for Azerbaijan, Armenia, the United States, and indeed the entire world," the American leader concluded.
Some information about the agenda of the "historic meeting" in Washington has already appeared in public channels, and the content is largely the same except for some details.
The day before, Reuters quoted "informed sources" reporting on the upcoming agreement. According to the report, during the leaders' meetings, a peace framework document will be signed, under which the United States will obtain "exclusive rights to transit through the South Caucasus development corridor." It should be noted that the operation of this corridor will follow Armenian domestic law.
An unnamed official told the British news agency that through this document, Armenia plans to provide the United States with "exclusive long-term special rights" to develop the transit corridor, which will be named "TRIPP" (Trump International Peace and Prosperity Route).
This route is expected to pass through the Syunik region of Armenia, its main task being to ensure traffic links between "mainland" Azerbaijan and its exclave Nakhchivan, and will be operated according to Armenian law, while the United States will "lease the land to a consortium responsible for infrastructure and management." It is reported that this project, supported by commercial funds, will not only open up the region's transportation but also other communication facilities (gas pipelines, oil pipelines, fiber optic lines), and prevent the risk of new wars in the region.
On Thursday, Washington-based journalist Alex Lefevre shared more details. He stated that he had contacted some U.S. officials who provided detailed agendas for the upcoming meeting.
Lefevre claimed that in the context of regional communication liberalization in the South Caucasus, the "corridor logic" (the "Zangazur corridor") that Yerevan had opposed since the second Nagorno-Karabakh war in the fall of 2020 is no longer applicable, and the main focus of the meeting will be on a new transit and development plan led by the United States - the aforementioned TRIPP. He stated that U.S. officials have clearly indicated that the U.S. will not provide "solid security guarantees" and does not intend to deploy U.S. military or other government personnel along the "Trump route." Lefevre pointed out that the U.S. involvement will be entirely commercial, and the U.S. will ensure the safe operation of the route for all parties through agreements with "top operators."
According to Armenian media reports, three documents will be signed at the meeting in Washington on August 8.
The first document will be signed by Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov. Yerevan and Baku agreed to jointly exit the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), an international mechanism established in the early 1990s to assist in resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which has been inactive for the past three years. Since February 2022, when Russia and Ukraine began armed conflict, the co-chairmanship of the Minsk Group, consisting of senior diplomats from Russia, France, and the United States, did not hold meetings in Yerevan and Baku. In addition, in September 2023, all Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh left, and the leadership of the unrecognized republic decided to dissolve itself, ultimately rendering the co-chair mechanism and the OSCE Minsk Group meaningless.
Incidentally, dissolving the Minsk Group was one of the conditions set by Baku for signing a peace treaty with Yerevan, and both sides had reached full agreement on the text of the treaty by mid-March this year. Another condition is the amendment of the current Armenian constitution, which Azerbaijan claims contains "territorial claims" against Azerbaijan.
In this context, it is expected that today's meeting in Washington will sign the second document. This will not be the peace treaty itself between Armenia and Azerbaijan. It is expected that the foreign ministers of the two countries will sign a framework agreement, recording their willingness to continue working towards achieving lasting peace. According to the second document, Armenia and Azerbaijan commit that after the signing of the document, neither party will refuse the contents of all agreed-upon terms in the peace treaty draft. These terms will be considered as finally agreed upon and cannot be modified or rejected. In other words, this is a pre-signing of the peace treaty, i.e., a preliminary signature.
Evidently, Baku will only remove its last condition regarding the Armenian constitution after the "territorial claims" against the neighboring country are deleted from the Armenian constitutional text. For this, Pashinyan has already initiated the constitutional reform process, but the implementation schedule remains unclear.
Finally, the third document will be signed by the Armenian prime minister and U.S. President Donald Trump. This document relates to the TRIPP project.
The Guardian reported that "this transit corridor is expected to include railways, gas pipelines, oil pipelines, and fiber optic communication lines." The London-based media also noted that the construction funding for this route comes from private companies, not the U.S. government.
The information analysis portal Axios (based in Arlington, Virginia) reported more details about TRIPP. The report stated that Armenia has agreed to allow the U.S. to develop a 43-kilometer route passing through its territory.
"The Americans will earn billions of dollars annually from this new trade route. Russia, Iran, and related countries are losing the regional influence they thought was theirs," Axios reported.
According to the website's sources, the Trump administration previously told Pashinyan that if he allowed the U.S. to develop this transit route under U.S. leadership, then in Washington, Armenia would gain "a friendly and strong fortress to resist further Azerbaijani invasions."
Politico quoted three U.S. senior officials stating that in addition to unimpeded access to Nakhchivan, Baku will also receive a series of privileges from Washington. Specifically, the U.S. will lift restrictions on defense cooperation with Azerbaijan, repeal the famous 907 Amendment passed by the U.S. Congress in 1992, which prohibited direct military aid to Azerbaijan. Although the implementation of the 907 Amendment was "frozen" after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 so that the U.S. could use Azerbaijani territory as a transit point for military supplies and deploy military personnel to Afghanistan, the 907 Amendment remains a bargaining chip in Washington and often causes dissatisfaction among President Aliyev.
France 24 TV reported that on Thursday, Azerbaijan had signed an important agreement in Washington:
"Aliyev and U.S. envoy (Steven) Whitcomb attended the signing ceremony of the memorandum of understanding between ExxonMobil and the Azerbaijani state energy company SOCAR, followed by a meeting."
Many Western commentators agree that the meeting held today in Washington will send a "strong signal" to Moscow, indicating that these two South Caucasus republics are prepared to resolve their differences without Russian participation. This claim is said to be objective, but it is only partially so.
Incidentally, after the well-known tensions in Baku-Moscow relations (which were initiated by Azerbaijan), Aliyev and Pashinyan's positions have significantly converged, but have not yet fully aligned. Both leaders are seeking to please Trump himself, while not burning the bridge with Russia. This reckless behavior will cost Baku and Yerevan a high price, and both capitals are well aware of this.
In our view, the influence of Moscow in the South Caucasus may decline significantly through the implementation of projects like TRIPP. However, the recent rumors propagated by pro-Western figures in Yerevan and Baku about Russia "leaving" the region are obviously exaggerated. In such issues, geographical factors always prevail over geopolitical factors, regardless of how complex the latter may be, and regardless of how much funding the U.S. may provide for its TRIPP initiative (it is hard to believe that the project will receive substantial funding). Experience once again tells us that Trump is a "conditional master" of geopolitical rhetoric. But this ambitious Republican president faces significant challenges in translating words into concrete actions.
Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7536223632826892843/
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