Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has made clear that he remains committed to opening a U.S.-run transit corridor for Azerbaijan along Armenia’s border with Iran “as soon as possible” despite Tehran’s lingering concerns.
“We are transparent in this matter and are ready to answer any questions,” Pashinian told reporters on Thursday. “We just need to understand what exactly the concern is about, and it must be dispelled.”
“This is a global project … and we want to start its implementation as soon as possible,” he said.
Pashinian responded to the Iranian ambassador in Yerevan, Khalil Shirgholami. The latter said on Wednesday that the Armenian government must address his country’s “very legitimate and logical” concerns over the planned Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave through Armenia’s strategic Syunik region.
Shirgholami called for the creation of a “mechanism” to manage “potential risks of U.S. presence and threats to Iran” emanating from the TRIPP.
Tehran fears that the transit arrangement could endanger its border with Armenia and lead to U.S. security presence there.
Pashinian, who met with Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian in Tehran on July 3, said that it should on the contrary be interested in the project’s implementation.
“With the implementation of the TRIPP project, we will open a railway connection from the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea, as a result of which opportunities for trade and economic relations between Armenia and Iran will significantly expand,” he said.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan signed a bilateral framework agreement on practical modalities of the TRIPP in the run-up to Armenia’s June 7 parliamentary elections in which Washington openly supported Pashinian.
The U.S. Embassy in Yerevan reported on Friday that a team of engineers from the U.S. consulting firm AECOM again visited Armenia and “surveyed the TRIPP site for rail and other infrastructure development” last week.
