- Diplomat says the final peace deal is facing only one obstacle
- Armenia must change its constitution, he says.
- Armenia PM has called for voting on the change.
Iran threatened on Saturday by blocking a corridor planned in the Caucasus under a regional deal sponsored by US President Donald Trump, Iranian media reported and raised a new questioning of a peace plan hailed as a strategically important shift.
A Top Azerbaijani Diplomat earlier said the plan was announced by Trump on Friday was only one step from a final peace agreement between his country and Armenia, which repeated its support for the plan.
The proposed Trump route for international peace and prosperity (TRIPP) would run across southern Armenia and give Azerbaijan a direct route to his exclusion of Nakhchivan and in return to Turkey.
The United States would have exclusive development rights to the corridor, as the White House said would facilitate greater export of energy and other resources.
It was not immediately clear how Iran bordering the area would block it, but the statement from Ali Akbar Velayati, top adviser to Iran’s chief leader, raised questions about its security.
He said military exercises performed in northwestern Iran demonstrated the emergency and determination of the Islamic Republic to prevent geopolitical changes.
“This corridor is not becoming a passage owned by Trump, but rather a cemetery for Trump’s mercenaries,” Velayati said.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry previously welcomed the agreement “as an important step towards lasting regional peace”, but warned against any foreign intervention near its borders that could “undermine the region’s security and lasting stability”.
Analysts and insiders say Iran, during mounting US pressure over its disputed nuclear program and the wake of a 12-day war with Israel in June, lacks military power to block the corridor.
Moscow says West should avoid
Trump welcomed Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in the White House on Friday and witnessed their signature of a joint statement aimed at drawing a line during their decades long on-and-off conflict.
Russia, a traditional broker and ally in Armenia in the strategically important South Caucasus region, which is crossed with oil and gas lines, was not included, despite its border guards being stationed on the border between Armenia and Iran.
While Moscow said it supported the summit, it suggested “implementation of solutions developed by the countries of the region themselves with the support of their closest neighbors – Russia, Iran and Turkey” to avoid what it called “sad experience” of Western efforts to convey in the Middle East.
Azerbaijan’s close allies, NATO member Turkey, welcomed the agreement.
Baku and Yerevan have been at odds since the late 1980s, when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijan region mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Azerbaijan took back full control of the region in 2023, causing almost all the Territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
“The chapter on animosity is closed, and now we are moving towards lasting peace,” said Elin Suleymanov, Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the UK and predicted that the wider region’s prosperity and transport relations would be transformed for the better.
“This is a paradigm shift,” said Suleymanov, who, as a previous envoy to Washington, who used to work in President Aliyev’s office, is one of his country’s most senior diplomats.
Suleymanov refused to speculate on when a final peace agreement would be signed, but noted that Aliyev had said he wanted it to happen soon.
There was only one obstacle, said Suleymanov, who was for Armenia to change its constitution to remove a reference to Nagorno-Karabakh.
“Azerbaijan is ready to sign at any time when Armenia fulfills the very basic commitment of removing his territorial claim against Azerbaijan in his constitution,” he said.
Many questions unanswered
This year Pashinyan called on a referendum to change the constitution, but no date has been set for it yet. Armenia will hold parliamentary elections in June 2026, and the new constitution is expected to be prepared before the vote.
The Armenian leader said at X that the Washington summit had paved the way to end the decades of conflict and open transport relations that would unlock strategic financial opportunities.
When asked when the transit rail would start driving, Suleymanov said it would depend on cooperation between the United States and Armenia, which he said was already in conversations.
Joshua Kucera, Senior South Caucasus analyst at International Crisis Group, said Trump may not have gotten the light victory he had hoped for when the agreements left many questions unanswered.
The question of Armenia’s constitution continued to threaten to derail the process, and it was not clear how the new transport corridor would work in practice.
“Key information is missing, including how customs control and security work, and the nature of Armenia’s mutual access to Azerbaijan Territory. These can be serious stumbling blocks,” Kucera said.
Suleymanov played proposals that Russia, which still has extensive security and financial interests in Armenia, was disadvantaged.
“Anyone and everyone can benefit from this if they choose it,” he said.
