RFE/RL – Iran War Hampering Work On ‘Trump Route,’ Says Pashinian

“It is obvious that the TRIPP (Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity) is not a priority for the US administration today, at least, because we see what is happening and what they are busy with,” he told reporters. “Unfortunately, there is a high probability that it will affect [relevant] processes in terms of timelines because the [U.S.] government is focused on that issue.”

The TRIPP is due to connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave through Armenia’s strategic Syunik region bordering Iran. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan released the first major details of the TRIPP after meeting in Washington on January 13.

A joint U.S.-Armenian “implementation framework” confirmed that a special company controlled by the U.S. government will build a railway, a road, energy supply lines and other infrastructure along Armenia’s border with Iran and manage them for at least 49 years. Pashinian and Mirzoyan said late last year that work on that infrastructure will start this summer.

In the months leading up to the ongoing war, Iranian officials, notably a top aide to the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, spoke out against the transit arrangement. They feared that it could undermine Armenian control of the border and lead to U.S. security presence there. Yerevan sought to allay their concerns. Some observers believe that Tehran will now be even more opposed to the TRIPP even if the war is stopped in the coming days or weeks.

Iran is a major trading partner of Armenia and one of the landlocked country’s two conduits to the outside world. Although the Armenian-Iranian border has remained largely open since the start of the U.S.-Israeli air strikes on the Islamic Republic on February 28, the conflict has reportedly led to a serious fall in cargo traffic between the two states.

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