Pashinyan does not rule out outsourcing management of Syunik route

By Alexander Pracht

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Wednesday dismissed concerns that foreign powers might take control of regional transport routes passing through Armenia, saying that while management outsourcing is practiced in the country, all infrastructure remains under Armenian ownership.

“At present, Armenia applies the practice of outsourcing management,” Pashinyan said at a press conference in Yerevan, responding to questions about foreign administration of routes that might potentially connect Azerbaijan and its Nakhichevan exclave through Armenian territory. He cited examples such as Yerevan’s Zvartnots Airport, managed by an Argentine company, and the country’s railways, served by Russia, both still owned by the Armenian state.

Pashinyan added that the government is considering the idea of establishing a company to manage the potential transit route, which could attract international investment. “We are talking about infrastructure that should be created and managed. But everything must remain the property of Armenia,” he stressed.

He noted that Armenia’s legal framework allows long-term construction leases, commonly mistaken for land concessions, under which ownership reverts to the state once the contract expires. As an example of possible international involvement, Pashinyan recalled that in 2022 Yerevan proposed inviting a third-party company to handle front-end customs services on the Syunik route, but the idea was not accepted by other parties at the time.

These remarks come in response to a controversial statement last Friday by U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Thomas Barrack, who confirmed that Washington is considering leasing the road for 100 years “so that both sides can use it.” In a poorly worded comment, Barrack blamed “tribalism” in the region for hindering peace, sparking immediate backlash in Armenia, where any foreign control over sovereign territory is considered a red line.

Though Barrack avoided the term “Zangezur corridor” — a phrase rejected by Yerevan as irredentist — his statement marked the first on-record confirmation of the Trump administration’s reported plan to resolve the transit impasse through a lease agreement.

The Armenian government swiftly rejected the idea. “Armenia has never discussed and is not discussing the transfer of control over its sovereign territory to any third party,” said Prime Minister’s spokesperson Nazeli Baghdasaryan in a statement to Armenpress on Monday. She emphasized that all regional infrastructure negotiations are grounded in Armenia’s sovereignty and jurisdiction, and noted that Armenian law permits land leases only for agricultural purposes, rendering the U.S. proposal legally and politically unviable.

However, Pashinyan confirmed the US proposal at the press conference: “Yes, we received some suggestions from the United States.” He added that other countries also shared their proposals, without being more specific.

The idea of a land route connecting Azerbaijan to Nakhichevan through Armenian territory dates back to the 1990s, with various versions tied to broader settlement packages involving the status of Nagorno-Karabakh. Those plans never materialized. In the Russian-brokered ceasefire that ended the 2020 Karabakh war, Baku secured a clause obligating Armenia to ensure unimpeded transit for Azerbaijani cargo through Syunik, initially to be supervised by Russian forces. Yerevan, however, has repeatedly rejected any arrangement that would cede control over the route and continues to treat the issue as a matter of national sovereignty.

Commenting on Moscow’s role in the matter, Pashinyan acknowledged that the trilateral working group of deputy prime ministers from Armenia, Russia, and Azerbaijan, the main forum for discussing the reopening of regional transport links, has been inactive for some time. “This trilateral format [...] has not been functioning for a long time due to a certain lack of trust,” he said in response to a question from CivilNet.