U.S. Role in Armenia-Azerbaijan Transit Corridor Sparks Controversy

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Tensions linger between Armenia and Azerbaijan over a proposed transit route, better known to many as the Zangezur Corridor, through Armenia that would restore a Soviet-era connection between Azerbaijan and its exclave of Nakhchivan.Reports alleging that the United States had proposed that an American commercial company could manage the Armenian part of the route at first sparked denials from both sides before raising technical and political concerns within the region.For Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the route through Armenia’s territory is already politically sensitive ahead of next year’s elections. 

Almost five years following the November 2020 trilateral ceasefire statement that ended the 44-day war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the two sides remain at odds over outstanding issues. This includes disagreement over the restoration of regional transportation, as outlined in the ninth part of the Russian-brokered agreement (President of Russia, November 10, 2020). Central to this is the proposed, but still unrealized, Zangezur Corridor, a transit route that would connect mainland Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave through Armenia’s southernmost Syunik region.

The corridor was initially considered a way to introduce economic interdependency into the post-war environment (Modern Diplomacy, January 2024). It has since become a geopolitical flashpoint, reflecting not only competing national interests but also shifting power dynamics in the region (see EDM, November 3, 2023, January 24, 25, 2024). Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russia hold fundamentally different views on the matter, as do the European Union and the United States (see EDM, July 17, 23, 29).

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has been adamant that the restoration of this Soviet-era road and rail transit link must be unimpeded, as stipulated in the 2020 agreement, which Baku interprets as free from Armenian checkpoints (see EDM, March 7, 2023). With the construction of the necessary infrastructure on its side of the border expected to be completed by the end of this year, moreover, Baku has also signaled growing frustration with Yerevan’s failure to agree to those terms (see EDM, February 24).