Hamed Khosrowshahi – Researcher on South Caucasus Affairs

The Pashinyan government is trying to portray this assessment as purely technical, asserting that Yerevan’s red lines—national sovereignty, customs control, and the rejection of the term “corridor”—remain unchanged. However, the mere proposal of this idea has stirred domestic critics and foreign actors, once again demonstrating that Zangezur is no longer just a bilateral Baku-Yerevan issue but a test for redefining the roles and influence of the U.S., Turkey, Russia, Iran, and even China in the heart of the South Caucasus.

From an official standpoint, the Pashinyan cabinet still considers the Zangezur project part of the “Crossroads of Peace” initiative, which involves reopening roads and railways under Armenian jurisdiction with facilitated transit regulations—but not without passport controls. Authorities explicitly state that no part of Armenian territory will be handed over to a foreign government or contractor, and the use of the term “corridor,” which in Baku and Ankara’s discourse implies an extraterritorial route free from Armenian control, is unacceptable to them. This position has gained renewed confidence in recent weeks, as China, following a Communist Party delegation’s visit to the Caucasus, publicly endorsed Armenia’s territorial integrity, raising the political cost of establishing any uncontrolled passageway.

However, media reports tell a different story. These outlets—Azerbaijani, Armenian, and Western alike—claim that the plan to entrust the route’s management to an American company has been on the table since Trump’s first term and has gained fresh momentum under Biden’s White House. This scenario provides Baku with security guarantees, shortens the Nakhchivan-Baku route, and simultaneously sidelines Russia and Iran from the process entirely. Critics argue that although the project is labeled “logistical operation,” in practice, it would mean a passage where Armenian border forces have no effective oversight, and the state loses significant control over traffic and tariffs—a development framed in Yerevan’s political discourse as “quiet partition” or “proxy sovereignty.”

The complexity deepens when considering the unprecedented wave of tension between Russia and Azerbaijan alongside this development. Russia’s downing of an Azerbaijani passenger plane, the killing of two Azerbaijani citizens in Yekaterinburg by Russian security forces, the attack on Sputnik’s office in Baku, and the cancellation of all bilateral cultural events have created a new vacuum in the Kremlin’s traditional role as a border guarantor. Baku likely views this vacuum as an opportunity to push for a model supervised by a “neutral third party”—this time a Western rather than a Russian one. For Washington, placing an American logistics company on this East-West passage, right where China’s Belt and Road intersects with Iranian and Russian corridors, would be a geopolitical triumph.

Despite the uproar, three major obstacles remain. First, Armenia’s land laws prohibit long-term leases of non-agricultural land to foreigners; any concession agreement must pass parliamentary approval, and opposition factions are already up in arms. Second, Tehran’s red line is the 44-kilometer Iran-Armenia border. Iran not only rejects the term “Zangezur Corridor” but has also demonstrated its opposition over the past year through military drills near the Aras River and by accelerating the alternative “Aras Corridor” project. Third, Moscow itself is hesitant; the Kremlin knows that exclusion from the oversight process would mean losing its last traditional lever in the Caucasus and is unlikely to retreat without resistance—at least diplomatically and economically.

Thus, the Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister’s statement should be seen as a “trial balloon”: testing domestic public opinion, as well as the reactions of Tehran, Moscow, and Beijing, while signaling to Baku that Yerevan can break the deadlock with commercial ideas. However, until Armenia’s parliament lifts legal barriers, Iran stands firm on its border red line, and Russia maintains at least a nominal supervisory role. Foreign management—whether for a hundred or fifty years—remains more a bargaining chip than an imminent project.

Zangezur, with or without an American logistics company, will continue to be a test for defining the future of sovereignty in the era of transnational corridors. This outcome will affect Tehran, Moscow, Ankara, and Washington as much as Yerevan and Baku.