TBILISI: US Vice President JD Vance will visit Armenia and Azerbaijan this week to push a Washington-brokered peace \u200bagreement that could transform energy and trade routes in the strategic South Caucasus region.<\/p>\n
His two-day trip to Armenia, which begins later on Monday, comes just six months after the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders signed an agreement at the White House seen as the first step toward peace after nearly 40 years of war.<\/p>\n
Vance, the first US vice president to visit Armenia, is seeking to advance the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), a proposed 43-kilometer (27-mile) corridor that would run across southern Armenia and give Azerbaijan a direct route to its exclave \u200cof Nakhchivan \u200cand in turn to Turkiye, Baku\u2019s close ally.<\/p>\n
\u201cVance\u2019s visit should \u200cserve \u2060to \u200breaffirm the \u200cUS\u2019s commitment to seeing the Trump Route through,\u201d said Joshua Kucera, a senior South Caucasus analyst at Crisis Group.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a region like the Caucasus, even a small amount of attention from the US can make a significant impact.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Armenian government said on Monday that Vance would hold talks with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and that both men would then make statements, without elaborating.<\/p>\n
Vance will then visit Azerbaijan on Wednesday and Thursday, the White House has said.<\/p>\n
Under the agreement signed last year, \u2060a private US firm, the TRIPP Development Company, has been granted exclusive rights to develop the proposed corridor, with Yerevan \u200cretaining full sovereignty over its borders, customs, taxation and security. The \u200droute would better connect Asia to Europe \u200dwhile \u2014 crucially for Washington \u2014 bypassing Russia and Iran at a time when Western countries are \u200dkeen on diversifying energy and trade routes away from Russia due to its war in Ukraine. Russia has traditionally viewed the South Caucasus as part of its sphere of influence but has seen its clout there diminish as it is distracted by the war in Ukraine. Securing US access to supplies of \u200bcritical minerals is also likely to be a key focus of Vance\u2019s visit. TRIPP could prove a key transit corridor for the vast mineral wealth of \u2060Central Asia \u2014 including uranium, copper, gold and rare earths \u2014 to Western markets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TBILISI: US Vice President JD Vance will visit Armenia and Azerbaijan this week to push a Washington-brokered peace \u200bagreement that could transform energy and trade routes in the strategic South Caucasus region. His two-day trip to Armenia, which begins later on Monday, comes just six months after the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders signed an agreement […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530364,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-530349","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n