Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran and US: who will benefit from “Trump Route”?

In an interview with International Affairs magazine, Andrei Areshev, a political scientist and expert at the Strategic Culture Foundation, spoke about the "Trump Route to International Peace and Prosperity" project.

"First off, the so-called 'Trump Route to International Peace and Prosperity' is a longstanding project with close links to both Turkish and Western intelligence agencies, that was actively pitched as early as the 1990s in the form of the so-called Goble Plan," Areshev said.

"This project envisaged unblocking transport links between the main territory of Azerbaijan, the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, and Turkey. However, it could not be implemented amid the armed conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh and the suspension of railway links between Armenia and Azerbaijan," he added.

"Following the events of 2020 and 2023, the new geopolitical landscape offered a chance to implement this project. We know that the Russian Federation also proposed to unblock transport links in the region, including through a trilateral interstate commission involving the deputy prime ministers of Russia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia," the expert explained.

"The commission did meet several times, but the Americans subsequently seized the initiative, presumably with the assistance and consent of Turkey and Azerbaijan, because this project is without any doubt very beneficial to both of them. The benefits are very clear too, since a direct transport link to Turkey - and from there to Europe - objectively strengthens Azerbaijan’s geopolitical role as a key country not only in the Caucasus but also in the Caspian region as a whole, including the transit routes connecting China and Central Asia to Turkey and Europe, bypassing the territories of both the Russian Federation and Iran," Andrei Areshev noted.

"We have seen certain steps taken over the past year to make this project happen. In particular, an investment fund was established, led by Konstantin Sokolov, an American businessman of Russian-Jewish descent," he added.

"We realize that the implementation of such a project would be viewed quite negatively by neighboring Iran, because it has to do with the former Soviet-Iranian - now Azerbaijani-Iranian and Armenian-Iranian - border. The Islamic Republic of Iran is pursuing its own projects in the Caucasus, specifically in Armenia. This involves an offshoot of the North-South corridor running through Armenia from the Iranian border to the Georgian border, which would provide Iran with a shortcut to Europe," Andrei Areshev explained.

"Given the current state of Armenian-Iranian relations, which, to put it mildly, are tense, the territory of southern Armenia, the Syunik region, could turn into the epicenter, or the stage, if you will, of yet another geopolitical standoff involving potential armed or hybrid elements. We shall see how things are going to unfold," he noted.

"Azerbaijan plans to open its section of the road in 2028 and is taking all the necessary steps to achieve this, but a lot can happen over the next few years," Andrei Areshev concluded.

The views of the author are his own and may differ from the position of the Editorial Board.

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