As part of an agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan that was brokered by President Trump, the US will gain long-term economic control of the Zangezur corridor, a strip of land that will go through Armenia’s territory and connect Azerbaijan with its exclave, known as Nakhchivan.
Azeri President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a trilateral declaration with Trump at the White House on Friday. “Now they’re friends, and they’re going to be friends for a long time,” Trump said at the signing ceremony. “You two are going to have a great relationship, and if you don’t, call me and I’ll straighten it out.”
Under the deal, the US will lease a 27-mile stretch of land in Armenia’s southern Syunik Province near Iran’s border for 99 years that will be developed into the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP). The US plans to sublease the land to a consortium of private US companies that will develop rail, oil, gas, and fiber optic lines in the corridor, which will still fall under Armenian law.
The concept of the Zangezur corridor was first pushed by Azerbaijan following the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War. At the end of 2022, Azerbaijan imposed a blockade on Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh, a historically Armenian territory that is within Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized borders, which were drawn by the Soviet Union.
A September 2023 Azeri offensive ended with the ethnic cleansing of the more than 100,000 Armenian Christians who lived in Nagorno-Karabakh and the full Azeri takeover of the territory, which was solidified by the declaration signed on Friday.
Aliyev had previously hinted that Azerbaijan could take military action to establish the Zangezur corridor, and the deal signed in Washington takes that threat off the table. The corridor will connect Azerbaijan with Turkey, a key ally of Baku that provided strong support in the takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh. Israel also provided Azerbaijan with weapons for its Nagorno-Karabakh campaign and sees Baku as an ally against Iran.
Iran has come out strongly against the US control of the Zangezur corridor, with an advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Al Khamenei vowing Tehran will block it. “This passage will not become a gateway for Trump’s mercenaries — it will become their graveyard,” said Ali Akbar Velayati.
According to Alex Raufoglu, a White House correspondent who covers the South Caucasus, US officials said that Washington will not be providing “hard security guarantees” for the Zangezur corridor and will not be deploying forces there. Instead, the US will be relying on private contractors for security.
