YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — US and Armenian officials held another meeting of a bilateral task force that was set up last fall to deal with practical modalities of opening a US-administered transit corridor for Azerbaijan through Armenia.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan committed himself to such an arrangement during talks with US President Donald Trump and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held at the White House last August. The working group is tasked with helping to implement these and other US-Armenian understandings reached during the summit.
A third session of the group co-headed by US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Sonata Coulter and Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanyan took place via video link on Wednesday, April 1.
“The Working Group members exchanged views on steps aimed at strengthening strategic partnership between Armenia and the US, including economic cooperation, energy, critical and emerging technologies,” the Armenian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The statement made no mention of the planned Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) which is due to connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave through Armenia’s strategic Syunik region bordering Iran.
According to a joint US-Armenian “implementation framework” signed in January, a special company controlled by the US government will build a railway, a road, energy supply lines and other infrastructure along the Armenian-Iranian border and manage them for at least 49 years. Pashinyan said late last year that work on that infrastructure will start this summer.
