Vance said Pashinian’s reelection is essential for the implementation of Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements brokered by the United States, notably the one calling for the opening of a U.S.-run transit corridor that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave through Armenia’s Syunik region.
The transit arrangement to be named after U.S. President Donald Trump was high on the agenda of their talks. Vance, who will proceed to Baku on Tuesday, stressed its significance during an ensuing news conference with Pashinian.
“It is going to open up a whole new world of trade, transit and energy flows in this region of the world, and it will create unprecedented connections between Armenia and its neighbors,” he said of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).
Washington and Yerevan publicized last month the first major details of the TRIPP. A joint “implementation framework” agreed by them 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. The U.S. Embassy in Yerevan announced late last week that a team from the U.S. engineering consulting firm AECOM has arrived in Armenia to “initiate work on a survey of the TRIPP site.”
Vance did not give time frames or specify the amount of funding necessary for the implementation of the controversial project.
“I don’t think the money is the issue,” he told reporters. “I think there is actually a lot of capital interested in this particular project. There are a lot of people across the world who think they can make a good return on investment by investing in Armenia and this TRIPP project. I think the question is, how do we get a peace deal into a good next phase? How do we keep the [Armenian] prime minister in a good place where he can start to focus on the future?”
“I know there is an election coming up. I won’t talk about that, but to the extent my endorsement means anything, he certainly has it because this is a guy who can build the long-term partnership to make this kind of a thing stick,” Vance added in a first-ever U.S. endorsement of an Armenian election contender.
Not surprisingly, Pashinian was full of praise for Trump and Vance. He said the latter’s visit underlines Armenia’s deepening “strategic partnership” with the U.S.
A view of Armenia’s border with Iran, April 12, 2025.
Armenian opposition leaders, who hope to unseat Pashinian through the elections, have expressed serious concern over the TRIPP, saying that it could undermine Armenian control over that part of Syunik. They claim that Pashinian has accepted Baku’s demands for the movement of people through the corridor to be exempt from Armenian face-to-face border checks. Meeting with Trump in Davos on January 22, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev likewise said the TRIPP amounts to the kind of an extraterritorial “Zangezur corridor” that is sought by Baku.
Iran is also unhappy with the TRIPP, fearing that it could cut the Armenian-Iranian border and lead to U.S. security presence there. A senior aide to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei reiterated in December that the project is therefore unacceptable to the Islamic Republic.
Asked by a U.S. reporter, Pashinian declined to say whether he discussed with Vance the looming threat of U.S. military action against Tehran. For his part, the U.S. vice president would not be drawn on the likelihood of such a scenario. He touted instead the newly announced sale of U.S. surveillance drones to Armenia worth $11 million, saying that they will help the South Caucasus create “real deterrence” against external threats.
In the run-up to his tour of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Vance faced calls from civic groups in Armenia and its worldwide Diaspora to press Baku to release at least 19 Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijan. Several dozen activists rallied near the presidential palace in Yerevan for that purpose during his talks with Pashinian. Vance did not mention the issue during their joint news conference.
