Armenia has denied reports that the United States will oversee the planned corridor that would link Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave via Armenia.
The US ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, told journalists last week that Washington has proposed to take over the planned corridor between Armenia and Azerbaijan. “They [Armenia and Azerbaijan] are arguing over 32 kilometers of road, but this is no joke. It’s been going on for a decade - 32 kilometers of road,” Barrack said in New York. “So what happens is America comes in and says, ‘Okay, we’ll take it over. Give us the 32 kilometers of road on a hundred-year lease, and you can all share it,” he said. “But these tribal points of view do not fade.
Barrack’s statement was dismissed by the Armenian government. Nazeli Baghdasaryan, the spokesperson of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, told local media that Armenia was in talks over the issue of corridor with Azerbaijan ‘exclusively within the framework of its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and jurisdiction’. ‘We cannot consider any other logic’, Baghdasaryan said.
The US ambassador’s remarks are consistent with the earlier remarks by unconfirmed reports that Washington has proposed placing an American company in charge of overseeing transit of people and cargo from Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan via Armenia. Commenting on these reports, last week, Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mnatsakan Safarian said the US administration of the road is possible if the plan complies with Armenia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The establishment of the land corridor, dubbed as Zangazur corridor in Azerbaijan, is in line with the trilateral peace agreement signed between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia following Baku's victory in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020. Azerbaijan has been demanding the opening of the corridor since then.
It should be noted that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met on in Abu Dhabi on Thursday to discuss the peace process, including the corridor via Armenia. However, no agreement was reached during the meeting.
