On August 8th of 2025, an historic meeting took place between two leaders of the South Caucasus: Nikol Pashinyan, the prime minister of Armenia, and Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan. Their countries have been enemies for decades, and have been at war over this little region called Nagorno-Karabakh for thirty-five years, having had numerous wars going back to the 1980s. In 1988, as the Soviet Union was fragmenting, Armenians and Azeris broke out into a war and eventually, in 1994, the Armenians won and seized Nagorno-Karabakh and made it into an Armenian controlled buffer zone within Azerbaijan. 

 They were in a horrific war that began 2020, with the Azeris eventually taking Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023, and pushing the Armenians out. In September of 2022, Azerbaijan even invaded Armenia, killing hundreds of Armenian troops. Donald Trump oversaw this meeting, in which the two leaders shook hands and signed a peace declaration and agreement on trade and security. Part of the deal is that the Americans will control the Zangezeur corridor which runs through Armenia’s Syunik province. As a showcase of Trump’s desire to have a legacy as a peacekeeper, this corridor will be called “the Trump Rout for International Peace and Prosperity.” “A great honour for me,” said Trump. To feed Trump’s ego, both Aliyev and Pashinyan promised to nominate him for a Nobel peace prize.

Knowing what America’s goals have always been since the Cold War, it is clear what the objective of the Americans is in Armenia and Azerbaijan: to keep the Russians out. Whatever the Americans do, it will be done to advance NATO, and in the case of Azerbaijan and Armenia, it will be to the benefit of Turkey since it is the second most powerful country in NATO and borders with Azerbaijan and Armenia. When Azerbaijan defeated Armenia in Nagorno-Karabak in 2020, it did so with the backing of Turkey, which means NATO. The United States and Turkey wanted the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh defeated because Armenia is an ally of Russia, and thus by pushing the Armenians out of Nagorno-Karabakh, an ally of Russia was further weakened in the South Caucasus, and NATO further entrenched itself there. Also, Armenia was a member of Russia’s CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization, Russia’s attempt to rival NATO) since 1994. By Azerbaijan invading Armenia in September of 2022 while Russia was bogged down in Ukraine, it knew the Russians would have been unable to help Armenia, and thus NATO/Turkey was putting pressure on the Armenians to ditch the Russian alliance. In 2024 the Armenians froze their CSTO membership. 

In 2020, as part of a ceasefire deal, both Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed to open a route through Armenia, supervised by Russian officials. But both Pashinyan and Aliyev abandoned this idea. In August of 2025, Armenia agreed to lease the land for 99 years to America, which will hire contractors to run the route.

Zangezur corridor on the map. As you can see, it lies right next to Iran

The vanquishing of the Armenians pushed out a Russian ally from the Nagorno-Karabakh region and thus enlarged the territory of NATO (especially Turkey) and pressured the Armenians to withdraw from its security alliance with Russia. Now, the Americans want to operate a corridor that runs across Armenia. This corridor will link Azerbaijan’s enclave, Nakhchivan, with mainland Azerbaijan, at Armenia’s expense. While also weakening Russia in the South Caucasus, this deal has also been hammered out to weaken Iran which is an ally to Armenia, a rival to Azerbaijan, and which also borders with both Azerbaijan and Armenia. What makes this goal so much clearer is the fact that the Zangazur corridor borders right with Iran, which means that the Americans want to control the Armenian side of the border with Iran, which means NATO being right next door to Iran, something that is viewed as obviously hostile in the eyes of the Iranians. This explains why Israel so ardently supports Azerbaijan. A strong Azerbaijan, a weak Armenia, and NATO right on the other side of Iran’s border means a further isolated and thus weakened Iran. Some Iranian analysts affirmed that the deal amounts to “Iran’s geopolitical suffocation in the region”. Abbas Mousavi, former Iranian ambassador to Baku and a deputy presidential spokesperson, described Trump’s actions regarding Azerbaijan and Armenia as “interesting, offensive and dangerous”. 

NATO is provoking Iran to war. In 2023 and 2024, Armenia and Azerbaijan spoke about forming a corridor on the border with Iran, but decided that they could not make it happen because Iran began doing a buildup of forces and military equipment at the border with Armenia. 

Armenia is Iran’s access way into Georgia, and thus into the rest of Europe and the Black Sea. By NATO placing a patrol on the corridor right on the Armenian side of the border with Iran, it is clearly desirous of cutting off Iran from Europe and the Black Sea. The geopolitics in this regard is centered, to an immense extent, on the Black Sea. Turkey is a major player in the entirety of this situation. Russia needs access from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean. And who controls that access? Turkey. Turkey controls the access from the Bosphorus Strait on the Black Sea into the Sea of Marmara, and from there into the Dardanelles which leads into the Aegean Sea which leads into the Mediterranean.

This is why Turkey is so vital to NATO. Turkey is NATO’s massive chess piece to control Russia’ access into the Mediterranean. Thus, the NATO strategy is to use the Turks to hinder the Russians’ access into the Mediterranean and to use the Azeris (and also the Turks, since the Azeris are a continuation of Turkish power) to block Iran’s access into the Black Sea. The agreement was also done to weaken Russia’s economic access in the South Caucasus. Before 2022, Russian imports to Armenia and Azerbaijan supplied 20-30 percent of regional trade, and now Russia’s imports in this region face sanctions constraints.

The corridor will also further empower Turkey. By having a continuous route from Nakhchivan, through Armenia, and into mainland Azerbaijan, Turkey will have direct access into the Caspian Sea, and thus into Central Asia. This route would thus enable Turkey to pursue its dream of a pan-Turkic union, in which the Turkic nations of Central Asia would be led by Turkey. One of these Central Asian Turkic countries is Kazakhstan, which is a major producer of oil, natural gas and the biggest producer of uranium in the world. Through this corridor, Turkey can have direct access from Kazakhstan and can more easily import not just energy, but uranium to make nuclear weapons. This would make nuclear armament easier for Turkey. Israel has been a major ally to Azerbaijan due to its hostilities towards Iran. Israel is happy with the Trump brokered deal because it isolates Iran and empowers Azerbaijan. But, this deal is also going to be beneficial to Turkey which is right now in the midst of tensions with Israel over Syria. Even though Israel is happy to use this deal to weaken Iran, this deal will also backfire, helping to further enable a nuclear armed Turkey which, in a major war, would be a massive problem for Israel, and its going to bite the Jewish state in the end.

The new route would also enable Europe to access the Caspian Sea while bypassing Iran and Russia. The Zangezur corridor project is not just geopolitical, but economic. A trade route through Azerbaijan and Armenia, would unlock $50-100 billion in annual trade value by 2027, according to the World Bank. According to Forbes Magazine, “Bloomberg data from May 2025 indicates the route could cut Europe-Asia transit times by 12-15 days compared to existing routes.” The Center for Economic Reforms Analysis and Communication For Azerbaijan, forecasts that the corridor would increase total exports for Azerbaijan by over $700 million and boost non-oil GDP by 2 percent annually. The Caspian Sea region is a major source for natural gas and oil, and Europe wants to increase its importation of these resources. A direct route connecting Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey would cut down the costs for Europe to import gas and oil. 

The denouement of all this will be Armenia being persecuted by Turkey and Azerbaijan, while at the same time provoking Russia and Iran into further hostilities. Europe will also benefit from the trade route and (especially Germany) will further deepen its ties with Turkey. It was Turkey who genocided a million Armenians, and now it is Turkey, with its US ally, who want to rule over Armenia for the purpose of weakening Russia. Turkey invaded Armenia in 1920, in its goal to exterminate the Armenians, and lost. Turkey has never forgotten this loss, and wishes to resume from where it left off in the Armenian Genocide.