Planned route will stimulate trade between former enemies and establish a U.S. presence in the South Caucasus region, experts say.
Armenia and Azerbaijan on Aug. 8 signed a U.S.-backed joint declaration aimed at ending decades of conflict between the two South Caucasus nations.
Hosted by President Donald Trump at the White House, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev also signed a second agreement paving the way for a U.S.-developed regional transit corridor.
To be called the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP), the land corridor will link Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave, which is separated from the mainland by Armenia and shares a border with Turkey.
According to geopolitical analyst Ana Maria Evans, the planned route “has the potential to induce significant geopolitical, economic, and security changes in the region and beyond.”
“An efficient trade route between Azerbaijan and Armenia has the potential to give both countries a front-seat role in global supply chains,” Evans, a professor at Lisbon’s Catholic University, told The Epoch Times.
Mamuka Tsereteli, a senior fellow at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the American Foreign Policy Council, said the TRIPP would likely create long-term opportunities “for free and open connectivity between Greater Central Asia and Europe and the Mediterranean through the South Caucasus.”
Addressing reporters at the signing ceremony, Trump described the planned corridor as “a special transit area that will allow Azerbaijan to get full access to its territory of Nakhchivan while fully respecting Armenia’s sovereignty.”
Armenia, he added, was “also creating an exclusive partnership with the United States to develop this corridor, which could extend for up to 99 years.”
“We anticipate significant infrastructure development by American companies,” Trump said. “They’re very anxious to go into these two countries.”
Shortly before the agreements were signed, a senior White House official told reporters that a consortium would likely be tasked with handling the TRIPP’s infrastructure and management.
Tsereteli told The Epoch Times that the corridor deal was a framework, so “many details still need to be worked out.”
Nevertheless, he described the U.S. role in the transit scheme as a “geopolitical breakthrough” that would establish a “long-term U.S. presence in the region.”
He added that “the U.S. participation in the project still needs to be clarified.”
By Adam Morrow
