The core sticking point remains sovereignty. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stressed
that Armenia must retain control over the route. At the same time,
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, speaking in Khankendi/Stepanakert
(the former capital of the now-dissolved Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, with
its indigenous Armenian population violently expelled from the region
in 2023, insisted
on unilateral access to Nakhichevan and Turkey, dismissing any foreign
presence. “There will be no operators, no leases, no rentals on our
territory,” he asserted — an implicit rebuke to Washington.
Given Aliyev’s past claims that Syunik is “ancient Azerbaijani land” and his threats to seize it by force, Armenia rightly sees his demands as a precursor to annexation.
Still, Aliyev praised Trump’s “vision and efforts to promote peace” after Trump shared a clip of his speech on Truth Social — in what appeared to be an attempt to flatter the U.S. president.
Complicating matters further, the proposed corridor would cut through Armenian territory bordering Iran. Tehran has fiercely opposed
any extraterritorial arrangement, fearing it would sever its link with
Armenia, boost Turkish-Azerbaijani influence at its own expense, and
leave its trade routes Russia and Europe vulnerable to Baku’s whims. Iran even conducted military drills near Azerbaijan’s border in 2022 as a warning.
Adding to Tehran’s unease is Azerbaijan’s military cooperation with Israel, along with suspicions that Israeli drones entered Iran via Azerbaijani airspace during their 12-day war last month — a claim that Baku vehemently denies.
Iran also suspects Baku and Tel Aviv of stoking separatist sentiments
among its Azeri population. Notably, Brenda Shaffer from the
Washington-based neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies
(a vocal advocate for Azerbaijani irredentism with close ties to Baku’s government) framed Armenia-Azerbaijan peace almost solely as a means to isolate Iran and create a “NATO corridor” from Turkey to Central Asia.
Given
U.S. support for Israeli strikes on Iran and its own attacks on Iranian
nuclear sites, an American-run corridor near its border would only
heighten Tehran’s fears of encirclement. Despite its weakened state, Iran retains enough leverage to sabotage a deal it deems a threat to its core national interests.
Aliyev, meanwhile, appeared to placate Tehran by accusing, albeit without evidence, the EU’s Armenia border mission of spying on Iran in an apparent attempt to deflect Tehran’s scrutiny
over Baku’s ties with Israel. Still, his rhetoric aligned with Iran’s
opposition to extraregional meddling, meaning the U.S. and EU, just as
Armenia pivots toward the West.
Russia, like Iran, views the U.S. proposal as an attempt to push it out of the South Caucasus — a perception
Yerevan seems to be doing its best to encourage. Yet Moscow still holds
considerable leverage: it guards Armenia’s border with Iran, retains a
military base in Armenia, and dominates
broad sectors of its economy and infrastructure, even as Yerevan’s
pro-Western pivot so far is heavier on rhetoric than on tangible
actions. How would Russian border troops coexist with an American-run
corridor? Would Washington deploy forces to protect it, risking a clash
with Russian forces in Armenia? And does the U.S. even have the staying
power and political will to enforce such a deal in a region of only
marginal strategic importance to its interests?
While a
U.S.-brokered peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan is welcome in
principle, the current proposal ignores too many regional complexities.
At best, it’s a rough draft that requires intensive negotiation with all
the regional players, including Iran and Russia. At worst, it’s another
headline-grabbing stunt in Trump’s elusive quest for a Nobel Peace
Prize.