Outgoing Iranian ambassador to Armenia Mehdi Sobhani on Friday voiced Tehran’s lingering unease over Yerevan’s decision to grant the United States a role in managing a new transit corridor for Azerbaijan along the Iranian border.
The corridor—tentatively named the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP)—was pledged by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan during August 8 talks in Washington with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, hosted by U.S. President Donald Trump. The planned link would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave via Armenia’s Syunik province, which borders Iran.
Tehran’s Unease
Iranian leaders fear the project could undercut the Armenian-Iranian frontier and introduce a lasting U.S. security presence in the region. During his August 19 visit to Yerevan, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned against “outsourcing regional issues” to foreign powers, though he later said Armenian reassurances had “largely alleviated” his concerns. More conservative factions aligned with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have remained skeptical.
Sobhani, speaking at his farewell press conference in Yerevan, underscored that the operational details of TRIPP remain opaque. “The functions of the road operator, the details are unclear,” he said, noting that the only public plan so far is the creation of a U.S.-Armenian joint venture to administer the project.
Call for Reciprocity
The envoy stressed that any Armenian-Azerbaijani transport deal should be based on reciprocity. “If Azerbaijani citizens can reach Azerbaijan through the territory of Armenia, the same reality should also exist for Armenian citizens, so that they may likewise travel to Iran through Nakhichevan,” he argued.
Domestic Opposition
In Armenia, opposition parties have condemned the arrangement, warning it could weaken Yerevan’s control over Syunik and compromise the Iranian border. They accuse Pashinyan of agreeing to an extraterritorial “Zangezur corridor” long sought by Baku.
Aliyev appeared to bolster that claim in his Thursday address to the UN General Assembly in New York, declaring that TRIPP would provide Azerbaijan “unhindered passage through the Zangezur corridor.”
Armenian Parliament Speaker Alen Simonyan dismissed the remark as “disrespectful to the U.S. president” and insisted Baku’s rhetoric would “change over time.”
