YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Armenia accepted Azerbaijan’s demands to open a land corridor to its Nakhichevan exclave during the August 8 peace talks in Washington, Azerbaijani Prime Minister Ali Asadov said on Tuesday, August 26.
“After the [2020] patriotic war, President Ilham Aliyev repeatedly and resolutely stated that unhindered land passage from the main part of Azerbaijan to the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic should be ensured,” Asadov told an extraordinary cabinet meeting in Baku. “Despite all the difficulties, disagreements and different positions, this demand of the head of state has also been accepted by the Armenian side.”
Asadov pointed to agreements reached by Aliyev, US President Donald Trump and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the White House. Pashinyan pledged to give the United States exclusive rights to a transit corridor that will connect Nakhichevan to the rest of Azerbaijan through Armenia’s Syunik province. Asadov said this was the “result of the Azerbaijani people’s struggle for historical justice.”
The opening of what Baku calls the “Zangezur corridor” has been one of Aliyev’s conditions for making peace with Armenia. Pashinyan has repeatedly insisted since August 8 that the transit corridor named the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) will not undermine Armenian sovereignty over Syunik. However, he has so far declined to publicize crucial details of this arrangement, which Armenian opposition leaders say amounts to the kind of an extraterritorial corridor that has been sought by Baku.
A joint declaration by Aliyev and Pashinyan makes only a general reference to the TRIPP, while a relevant US-Armenian memorandum also signed in Washington on August 8 has still not been made public. The memorandum reportedly calls for a long-term US lease on the transit routes.
Aliyev has said all along that the transit of people and cargo through Syunik must be exempt from Armenian border controls. He insisted ahead of the Washington summit that Azerbaijanis traveling to from Nakhichevan “should not see the faces of Armenian border guards or anyone else.” Pashinyan has made ambiguous statements on this subject.
