Tour guide Ganimat Pashayev is more comfortable talking about the orchids, salt mines and birdlife of his native Nakhchivan than geopolitics. But the idea of the Azerbaijani exclave finally connecting to the rest of the country is something he can get on board with.
“Of course, it will help the region to develop. If you have good connections, if you have business, of course it will help people to live a happy life,” the 43-year-old told The National in a minibus, as it trundled across the frozen landscapes beside the Iranian border.
Sandwiched between Armenia, Iran and Turkey, and home to around 470,000 people, wild, mineral-rich Nakhchivan is currently only accessible from the rest of Azerbaijan by air or a circuitous route through Iran.
That may change, though, if a major geopolitical shift that has taken place over the past year in the South Caucasus continues to gather pace.
Nakhchivan's connection to the rest of Azerbaijan hinges on the development of transport links through Armenia, across a short but geostrategically crucial portion of its land that is set to form another articulation in key trade routes from China to the West.
In turn, that connection is part of a tentative peace deal between the two former Soviet republics that, if sustained, will end over three decades of conflict.
The National gained rare international press access to Azerbaijan last month on a trip organised by the government in Baku. Meetings were mostly set up by the Azerbaijani government and officials placed no restrictions on question topics, although some interviewees declined to answer what they described as “political” questions.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought multiple wars since the late 1980s that left tens of thousands dead and over a million people displaced on both sides.
Last year, US President Donald Trump claimed the conflict was one of eight global wars he had ended. That claim was not entirely accurate: in the White House last August, Armenia and Azerbaijan initialled, but did not sign, a peace treaty, whose text had been agreed on in separate meetings earlier in the year.
But economic impetus, a pivot to the West, and conflict fatigue have brought the two countries closer than ever to normalising ties.
Besides initialling the peace treaty, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a declaration to allow Yerevan to work with Washington to develop the so-called “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (Tripp) through about 40km of southern Armenian territory, which will connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave.
The declaration included pledges to advance towards “a bright future not bound by the conflict of the past”. In classic Trump style, it promises economic development and private-sector involvement as an alternative to war.
The US involvement was “crucial” in pushing the peace process and transport routes forward, according to Hikmat Hajiyev, head of foreign policy affairs for Azerbaijan’s presidency.
“First, President Trump put his own personal political weight behind the document,” he told The National in an interview in Baku, referring to the joint declaration signed in Washington. “Then he put American engagement behind the document. Along with that, the Tripp corridor issue is also a win-win and a geopolitical game changer in our region.” In a glass cabinet behind Mr Hajiyev is a photo of Mr Aliyev alongside Mr Trump, both men beaming.
Shifting west, economic prospects outweigh old grievances
The route is part of a shift towards the West and away from Russia and Iran by both Azerbaijan and Armenia. The US is seeking to expand its influence in Russia's traditional stomping grounds in the South Caucasus while Moscow is distracted and exhausted by the war in Ukraine, analysts say. Improved ties with Baku’s close ally Turkey will also likely lead to an opening of Armenia’s currently closed border with the neighbouring Nato member.
Beyond the South Caucasus, the link through Armenia to Nakhchivan will connect to Europe via Turkey. That creates another joint in a global trade route linking China to western markets, known as the “middle corridor”. It avoids both heavily-sanctioned Russia and Iran, sidestepping the complications of routing trade through those countries.
At Salamalik, metres from Nakhchivan’s border with Iran, rehabilitation work is ongoing on an old Soviet-era railway that will eventually connect to the TRIPP in Armenia, and onwards to Turkey. The completion date for the Nakhchivan section is 2028; the route's overall completion is contingent on progress on the other side of the border.
Officials appear to be putting aside longstanding grievances with Armenia as Azerbaijan seeks economic gains and a more prominent position on global trade routes.
“Of course, [this railway route] makes access to Nakhchivan easier, once you leave behind three decades of being isolated from the mainland of Azerbaijan,” said Fuad Shahbazov, from the communications team at state-owned Azerbaijan Railways. “Once you get the chance to be connected by railway, it seems more convenient, so I think I can say it is a positive dynamic.”
In Baku this week, US Vice President JD Vance and Mr Aliyev signed a US-Azerbaijan strategic partnership which focuses on “regional connectivity”, economic investment and security co-operation, according to a copy of the agreement seen by The National. The US would also send Azerbaijan an undisclosed number of ships to help it protect its territorial waters, Mr Vance added.
Mr Vance also visited Armenia, in the first trip to the country by a sitting US president or vice president. There are “a lot of people across the world” who see good returns on “investing in Armenia and investing in this Tripp project,” he said in the capital Yerevan.
Armenia confirmed it will purchase V-BAT unmanned aerial vehicles, made by California-based Shield AI, and the US has granted export licences for Nvidia computer chips for an artificial intelligence data centre in Armenia.
The two sides also concluded negotiations over a civil nuclear co-operation agreement. That could lead to up to $5 billion in initial US exports, plus an additional $4 billion in long-term support through fuel and maintenance contracts, Armenian state media reported. The country currently relies on Russian and Iranian oil and gas imports, as well as a Russian-owned nuclear power facility, to meet its energy needs.
Building the physical route
Last month, Armenia and the US hammered out more details of the Tripp in Washington. They agreed to establish the “Tripp Development Company”, an initially US-majority-held entity that would have exclusive development rights to plan, build and operate rail, road and energy networks, as well as fibre-optic cables, along the route. Armenia will retain full control of land used by the Tripp routes, and control of its borders.
The route inside its territory is just 43km long. But for Armenia, it creates a deterrence to renewed conflict, according to Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Centre think tank in Yerevan.
"The greater significance is the economic interdependence that it represents, where for the future, the calculus of renewed fighting or military attack by Azerbaijan is much less,” he told The National.
Armenia has not published estimates of how much revenue it expects to generate from the Tripp project. The Baku-based Centre of Analysis of International Relations has estimated that Yerevan could generate $50-100 million per year in customs fees, corridor usage charges, and logistics services.
Financing the Tripp is the first step, followed by its construction. Its operation is the long-term phase, and will involve contracting of private firms to manage transit fee collection and other services. While Russia’s influence in the South Caucasus has declined, Mr Giragosian, a former US Senate staffer for the Democratic Party, is concerned that the area may feel the effects of Mr Trump’s willingness to deal with Moscow.
“What worries me is Trump's tendency to want to accommodate Putin, and in this, Russia may be offered a role by the Americans in exchange for quid pro quo on Ukraine,” he said.
Some in Armenia, among them Mr Pashinyan’s political opponents, have criticised the Tripp. Former president Robert Kocharian described it as “an Armenian-American project for Azerbaijan and Turkey”, and added that Washington’s only interest is curtailing neighbouring Iran.
Other observers dismiss those claims and say the critics' ideas are outdated. "Kocharian and the others, I simply refer to them as the Jurassic Park of Armenian politics,” Mr Giragosian said.
For oil and gas-rich Azerbaijan, boosting its position as a key node in global trade routes is part of diversifying its economy. Infrastructure within its borders is being funded from the state budget, although Baku has not disclosed exact figures.
One 124km segment of roads, tunnels and bridges running from the town of Horadiz to Aghbend at the Armenian border is costing $2 billion, a state roads company official said, indicating the large sums Baku is committing to its goals.
“Azerbaijan is between the two most sanctioned countries in the world, Russia and Iran. To the east is a sea [the Caspian Sea]. To the west, we have neighbours with whom we have not co-operated for the last 35 years [Armenia],” Rahman Hummatov, deputy minister of digital development and transport, said in an interview with The National in Baku.
“Everybody understands that as soon as we restore all links and all kinds of connectivity between our neighbours, it will give tremendous opportunities for growing our economy.”
On the Azerbaijani side, soil has been moving for years, in a sign of Baku’s intent to build up its infrastructure regardless of progress on the Armenian side. A railway line connecting Baku with Aghbend is planned for completion by 2027.
On the Horadiz to Aghbend road, whose construction by Turkish contracting giant Kalyon is nearly complete, tunnels have been bored through the mountainside up to the Armenian border. State roads company technical chief Jeyhun Yusifov gives a slight smile and says “inshallah” – God willing” – when asked about how he feels about the road connecting with Armenia.
If the Tripp project on the other side of the border does not progress, “at a minimum, we have an excellent motorway in our territory”, he said. “In any case, this road will be used, by our citizens, or for international traffic.”
Azerbaijani officials have never ruled out the idea of building networks into neighbouring Iran, on the other side of the Aras river: connecting this road across it would open more routes to the south.
Hardliners in Iran have opposed the Tripp, claiming it represents another form of US build-up on its borders. But as the US threatens imminent military action against Tehran unless it agrees to a new deal on its nuclear programme, and with US warships gathering in the Gulf, Iran is likely distracted by issues bigger than a strip of land on its north-western frontier.
Nearer to Baku, at the city’s Caspian Sea port, Azerbaijani officials see huge potential in building better transport links via the Tripp and Nakhchivan into Turkey, and are already expanding the hub's capacity.
Cargoes that head north-west to Georgia's Black Sea ports are hampered by the relatively small size of those ports, according to Khudayar Hasanli, an adviser to the director of the Port of Baku.
Heading instead west into Turkey and on to its Mediterranean port at Mersin would open up access to markets in north Africa and southern Europe.
“It’s a totally different, big market,” Mr Hasanli said.
Edging towards peace
Progress on the Trump route is not necessarily contingent on Azerbaijan and Armenia signing a peace deal, and trade and relations can gradually improve even before its completion, observers believe.
All the same, in Yerevan last week, alongside his praise for Nikol Pashinyan’s government and enthusiasm about the Tripp, JD Vance pointed to the need to advance on the peace agreement.
“I think the question is really, how do we get the peace deal into a good next phase,” he said.
Azerbaijan says a final signing, which would represent a resumption of diplomatic ties between Baku and Yerevan, cannot happen until Armenia removes from the preamble to its constitution references to territorial claims over land internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, and known to Armenians as Nagorno Karabakh.
Baku retook that land, as well as seven surrounding districts, in a war in 2020 and a lightning offensive in 2023, after nearly three decades of Armenian control following a war in the 1990s. Around 100,000 ethnic Armenians fled from the area to Armenia and Azerbaijanis displaced in the 1990s began to return. Last week, Baku handed heavy prison sentences to Armenians from a breakaway political leadership in the area.
The change in Armenia’s constitution can only be made through a referendum, which will not take place until after general elections slated for June this year. It is not clear what will happen if anyone other than Mr Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party wins the vote, although observers say a weak political opposition means his re-election is likely.
In theory, the initialled peace deal says no party can use internal laws as justification for failing to meet the terms of the agreement. That suggests Armenia could not use its constitution or other documents to make claims to Nagorno-Karabakh, as Baku fears.
Azerbaijan still says it wants the references removed. But it dismisses the idea that the whole peace agreement is tied to the outcome of a referendum, which in itself depends on a general election. Mr Hajiyev pointed to recent fuel exports from Azerbaijan to Armenia and work to connect the countries’ power grids as ways they are increasing co-operation despite the absence of a full deal.
“We are not making the entire regional development hostage to just one issue,” he said.
