“I am confident that under your leadership, the United States will make a fundamental contribution to establishing long-awaited peace and stability and ensuring prosperity in the South Caucasus,” Pashinian said in a congratulatory message publicized by his office.
“I reaffirm the unwavering commitment of the Government of the Republic of Armenia to the peace agenda, based on the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, the inviolability of internationally recognized borders, as well as the unblocking of regional infrastructure in line with the principles of the Crossroads of Peace project,” he said.
The project calls, among other things, for full Armenian control over a road and railway that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave via Armenia’s strategic Syunik province. Baku has repeatedly rejected it, saying that the transport corridor must be extraterritorial.
The Trump administration reportedly proposed in late May that Armenian border and customs checks for the transit of people and cargo to and from Nakhichevan be outsourced to an American company. The Armenian Foreign Ministry did not deny this on Thursday. A ministry spokeswoman said that Yerevan has proposed, for its part, “a number of solutions in line with that [Crossroads of Peace] initiative.”
The Trump administration is not known to have come up with other initiatives aimed at resolving the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.
Some of Pashinian’s domestic critics have already expressed concern at the logistical arrangement reportedly proposed by Washington. They say it would not only compromise Armenian sovereignty over Syunik but also undermine Armenia’s ties with Russia and especially neighboring Iran.
Syunik is the only Armenian province bordering Iran. Hence, Tehran’s strong opposition to the so-called “Zangezur corridor” sought by Azerbaijan as well as Turkey. Iranian leaders have also warned against the presence of “extra-regional forces” in the South Caucasus.