August 11, 2025

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Armenia–Azerbaijan Agreement Delivers Strategic Win for Washington

AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the White House for a landmark meeting. The two countries — locked in conflict for the past 30 years — signed an agreement that takes a huge step towards resolving the long-disputed Zangezur corridor issue — known to Armenians as the Syunik corridor. The deal, brokered by Trump, grants the United States exclusive special development rights for 99 years to construct the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), where the U.S. will develop railways, energy transport infrastructure, and fiber-optic lines.

The TRIPP, replacing the original Zangezur corridor concept, will connect mainland Azerbaijan with its exclave, Nakhichevan — a small Azerbaijani territory separated by Armenia. This link will complete a continuous corridor from Azerbaijan to Türkiye through Armenian territory, enhancing regional connectivity in the South Caucasus and streamlining access to Europe and the West. The route will bypass both Iran and Russia, marking a strategic victory for Washington and its allies. The TRIPP will place Iran's sole land border with Armenia under a U.S.-controlled transit route aligned with Azerbaijani and Turkish interests — effectively constraining Tehran’s only friendly access point to the South Caucasus, a prospect it has long opposed.

Armenia had previously rejected the original “Zangezur Corridor” proposal on the grounds that any agreement must uphold its sovereignty and ensure reciprocity — meaning Armenia must retain complete control over the section of the route crossing its territory and receive comparable rights to use the Nakhichevan segment for access to its own northern regions. For years, these conditions proved a stumbling block in negotiations, as Azerbaijan had demanded unimpeded access to its exclave and rejected Armenian suggestions to open all Soviet-era transport links, including those with Türkiye. Baku also demanded that Yerevan must amend parts of its constitution to remove references to its 1990 Declaration of Independence and any language implying territorial claims on Nagorno-Karabakh. At various points of heightened tension, President Aliyev had even hinted that Azerbaijan might seize the Zangezur/Syunik region by force if diplomacy failed.

The TRIPP, while similar in many respects to the original Zangezur Corridor proposal, will be administered by the United States, enhancing Washington’s influence in one of the world’s key energy hubs. According to U.S. statements, the route will operate under Armenian law — a provision intended to balance Armenian and Azerbaijani demands. Significantly, however, the deal contains no commitment from Armenia to amend its constitution. Shortly after Friday’s signing, Aliyev stressed that this was not a peace agreement and reiterated Baku’s demand that Yerevan make the necessary constitutional changes before a final peace deal can be concluded.

Even so, the TRIPP benefits Turkish and Azerbaijani interests more than Armenian ones, and comes at a time when Armenia, having broken with Russia, finds itself without a strong regional ally. For Azerbaijan, the project fulfills a long-standing strategic goal of securing a direct land link to its Nakhichevan exclave and, through it, to Türkiye. For Ankara, it delivers a physical connection to the Turkic world in the Caspian basin, reinforcing its role as a regional transit hub and deepening its geopolitical influence in the South Caucasus.

While the TRIPP offers Armenia a pathway to normalize relations with Türkiye and, by extension, gain access to European and global markets through Türkiye — potentially lowering trade costs and fostering stronger ties with the West given Türkiye’s NATO membership — its role is largely that of a transit corridor for Azerbaijani-Turkish trade rather than a hub in its own right. With limited control over the route, a small export base, and few opportunities to capture significant value from passing commerce, Armenia gains far less from the TRIPP than its counterparts, while conceding a degree of strategic advantage to two rivals whose regional ambitions often run counter to its own.

Armenia was undoubtedly at a disadvantage in negotiations with its neighbor. It is perhaps the most vulnerable it has ever been since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. According to regional analyst Nagorno-Karabakh Observer, public backing for the current leadership has sunk to roughly 15 percent, and Azerbaijani forces hold around 200 square km of Armenian territory, with Yerevan having suffered five major military setbacks to Baku in the past decade.

Azerbaijan on the other hand, had the upper hand since it began negotiating the corridor with Armenia. It had fully reclaimed the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory and displaced the region’s Armenian population in 2023, and controls pockets of territory inside Armenia itself. Baku enjoys deep strategic partnerships with Türkiye and Israel, strong energy and trade ties with the EU, and has received over $80 billion in investment from the UK. In a further boost to its global standing, Washington has also suspended Section 907 restrictions on aid to Azerbaijan — a measure in place since 1992 — in response to the signing of the deal with Armenia on Friday.

While Türkiye was not present during Friday’s White House summit, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan played an important role in negotiations up until that point. Not only is the TRIPP a strategic success for Turkish regional interests, but it also cements its growing role as a regional hegemon, replacing Russia, which had long held that title. Since the modern conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan began, Russia has acted as Armenia’s primary security guarantor. It maintained a major military base in Gyumri, still has guards on the Iran-Armenia border as the Foreign Ministry stated on Saturday, and served as a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, which was the international mediation body established in 1992 to oversee peace negotiations for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and has dissolved as a part of Friday’s deal.

Russia's peacekeeping mandate over the Azerbaijan–Nakhichevan route, granted in the 2020 ceasefire, has since been undermined by U.S. and Turkish-led diplomacy and its own inability to stop Azerbaijani advances in 2021, 2022, and the decisive 2023 Nagorno-Karabakh offensive — an operation some analysts believe Russia tacitly allowed as Armenia pivoted closer to the West. Just a day before Friday’s deal, a Russian strike hit a gas compressor station used to transport Azerbaijani gas to Ukraine — likely in retaliation for Baku’s sidelining of Moscow in both the conflict and the negotiations, as well as its growing alignment with Western interests.

The TRIPP is also incredibly damaging to Russia’s close ally, Iran. Tehran sees its border with Armenia as a critical artery in its North–South trade route to Europe, and any erosion of Armenian sovereignty over it is viewed as a direct threat to both its border security and regional influence. Tehran, hamstrung by sanctions, regional overreach, and domestic pressures post October 7, is in no position to counter the shift in power dynamics in the South Caucasus. Reports that Washington may use the peace process to bring Azerbaijan, and potentially Armenia, into the Abraham Accords only deepen those fears.

While the TRIPP is a landmark achievement for U.S and Western interests, it does leave some issues unresolved. It remains unclear how the agreement will be guaranteed after Trump’s tenure. There has still been no conclusion on the rights and security of ethnic Armenians to return to Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan continues to occupy parts of Armenian territory, and Armenian captives and prisoners of war (POWs) remain in Azerbaijani custody. Trump did state he would mention this issue to Aliyev, commenting “I think he will [release POWs] for me.” Nevertheless, the TRIPP marks a significant step toward addressing these issues and stands as a clear diplomatic win for Trump on the global stage.