A trilateral meeting between US President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev will take place in Washington on August 8. According to leaks, a number of documents are expected to be signed.
Yesterday, it was reported that the meeting between Trump, Pashinyan and Aliyev will focus on the Trump Route to International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) – a new transit and development program. It was noted that the US will not deploy troops along this route. US participation will be exclusively commercial: the US will take responsibility for ensuring the “safe operation of the route for all parties” through agreements with “high-quality operators”.
Below is the reaction of the international press to the upcoming meeting.
“The US will make a series of goodwill gestures towards Baku, lifting restrictions on defense cooperation and a ban on direct aid to Azerbaijan,” Politico writes.
According to the newspaper, the agreement will disappoint many Armenians, as it conspicuously lacks specific provisions on the resettlement of residents of the historically Armenian enclave (referring to Artsakh) and the resolution of the prisoner of war issue.
“Russia’s position in the region has weakened in recent years, opening the door for the US to play the role of peacemaker. Trump and his team saw this as an opportunity. They opened the door, and Pashinyan and Aliyev were hungry for outside intervention and leadership that excluded Russia. Trump has brought both countries closer to peace than anyone else,” the FT writes.
“This process, like many of Trump’s peacemaking moves, may be more symbolic than substantive,” the WP writes.
Trump’s “roadmap to international peace and prosperity,” which will connect Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan via Armenia, is expected to eventually include a railway, oil and gas pipelines, and fibre-optic cables, and will allow the movement of goods and people, the British newspaper The Guardian writes.
“The agreement does not stipulate that the United States will pay for the construction of the transit corridor; private corporations will do that,” the article says.