Pashinyan: We will begin building the 'Trump Route' next year.

Nikol Pashinyan, Prime Minister of Armenia

Yerevan says the enclave issue will only be discussed after border delimitation.

Pashinyan says he will release peace negotiation documents about Karabakh.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that construction on the Armenian segment of the “Trump Route,” which will link Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan, will start next year.

He announced this on November 12 while answering questions in Parliament.

We need to finalize all the details on paper by the end of this year. Our aim is to reach an agreement during the first half of 2026 and start building in the second half. That's the plan, The Prime Minister said.

Pashinyan mentioned that these projects often face delays.

He said the railway part of the route will follow the old Soviet-era line because building a new railway in a different direction doesn't make sense. “The gas pipeline and power lines, though, will go north of it,” Pashinyan added.

Earlier, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev had said that the railway part of the “Trump Route” in Azerbaijan would reach the Armenian border by the end of this year.

On August 8, a peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia was initiated in Washington. The document calls for establishing relations and ensuring peace between the two countries.

Former US President Donald Trump announced that Washington signed a document providing for the “Trump Route,” which will connect Azerbaijan with Nakhchivan, to be leased to the US for 99 years, as well as other agreements with both countries.

“There are no major updates on border delimitation or the enclave issue,” Armenian Deputy Speaker Ruben Rubinyan told reporters. He stated that The commissions haven’t met recently, and there are no new developments, and he dismissed opposition claims about new concessions to Azerbaijan as nonsense.

Reporters asked Rubinyan how Armenia plans to handle its strategic roads if Azerbaijani enclaves are returned. They worry that Azerbaijan would gain control of more than two kilometers of the highway linking Armenia with Georgia, as well as the road to Iran.

Rubinyan said the Armenian and Azerbaijani border delimitation commissions should discuss all enclave-related issues. If a territorial exchange is decided, it can only happen after a referendum, he said, noting that Armenia’s constitution requires it.

Debate over the possible return or exchange of enclaves has increased in Armenia after a statement by Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Aykhan Hajizade. He said returning four Azerbaijani enclaves is a priority for Baku.

In response, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wrote on Facebook: The delimitation process must restore Artsvashen and other occupied Armenian territories to us.

In an interview with the APA news agency, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Aykhan Hajizade said that returning three villages in the Gazakh district and the village of Karki in Nakhchivan to Azerbaijan is a priority. He added that the Armenian and Azerbaijani border delimitation commissions should address the issue.

The possible return of four enclaves — Karki, Verin Askipara, Sofulu, and Barkhudarlu — has caused concern in Armenia. If these territories are handed over to Azerbaijan, several stretches of important roads connecting Armenia with Georgia and Iran would be under Azerbaijani control. Armenian officials have discussed a possible territorial exchange for several years because of this.

‘We can’t be silent about Artsvashen — it’s our land’

Deputy Speaker of the Armenian National Assembly Ruben Rubinyan said:

“Artsvashen is our territory. I have a duty to talk about the need to get Artsvashen back because it's our land. I can’t stay quiet about Artsvashen — or about the territories in Jermuk, Syunik, and Tavush that are also occupied.”

He also mentioned a previous statement by the Prime Minister, saying that “Armenia has a clear legal right to Artsvashen and other territories now occupied by Azerbaijan.”

‘An exchange isn’t possible right now’

Sargis Handanyan, head of the parliamentary foreign affairs commission, also said the enclave issue should be resolved during delimitation:

“We aren’t hiding anything. We can’t consider an exchange right now because the enclaves must be delimited first. We don’t know when this will happen. Delimitation has its own steps,” Handanyan said.

He explained that the delimitation and demarcation process involves:

delimitation,

approving the protocols,

signing and ratifying the state border agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan,

doing demarcation work.

“Then Armenia and Azerbaijan will decide how to address the enclave issue. If they decide to exchange territories, Armenian law requires a referendum. There must be a referendum on this,” the MP said.

Speaking about the work of the delimitation commissions, Handanyan stated that the previous meeting was in September and concerned the “Trump Route” (TRIPP) project. He thinks the next sessions will discuss the enclave issue.

“This is all within the commissions’ responsibility. It doesn’t have a political or geopolitical angle,” Handanyan said.

There is a chance to ‘change the border line’

Yerevan and Baku agreed on the rules for the Armenian-Azerbaijani border delimitation commissions in August 2024. According to the document, both sides will carry out the delimitation based on the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration. This means Armenia and Azerbaijan recognize each other within the borders of the former Soviet republics.

The regulations have seven articles detailing the technical and substantive parts of the delimitation process. Armenia and Azerbaijan will use all relevant cartographic documents during their work.

The parties also agreed to the chance of border changes involving:

ensuring the security of border settlements,

keeping engineering, energy, transport, and other infrastructure running,

managing water resources.

Political analyst Garik Keryan believes:

“Arcvashen can only be returned to Armenia if the Azerbaijani enclaves are also returned.

Getting Arcvashen back is good for restoring Armenia’s territory. But it’s not as good as the losses Armenia could face if it transfers the enclaves to Azerbaijan in terms of strategy or economics.

The best way is to reach a mutual agreement through diplomacy, settling Arcvashen and the enclaves.”

Suren Surenyants, leader of the Democratic Alternative party, notes:

“Arcvashen has never been on the negotiation table, at least not from Azerbaijan’s side. But the Azerbaijani enclaves have been on Baku’s list of demands for a while.

It seems Pashinyan has already agreed or simply stopped resisting.

Returning the enclaves could be a disaster for Armenia’s security and stability.

This would mean:

Azerbaijan regains its legal and physical presence on Armenian soil,

border instability and logistical problems,

the conflict moves onto Armenian territory, which harms its statehood.

This isn't peace, but a new way for Azerbaijan to control Armenia.”

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that the main negotiation documents related to the Karabakh conflict will be made public by the end of this year. He did this in response to recent statements by former Presidents Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan.

Pashinyan called their statements an admission that they used the Karabakh conflict to weaken Armenian statehood.

All peace proposals aimed to shorten the chain and this meant the end of Armenia,” the Prime Minister wrote on his Facebook page.

Pashinyan claims Armenia only avoided this because of the people's instinct and the sacrifice of those who died.

The former presidents separately criticized Pashinyan's handling of the 2020 Second Karabakh War and later negotiations. Robert Kocharyan claimed that Armenia refused negotiations in 2019 and the process was planned to cause conflict. Serzh Sargsyan said that the Armenian army was weak and diplomacy was passive with Azerbaijan's intelligence superiority led to the war.

Kocharyan also noted that the ceasefire agreement that ended the war allowed Armenia to keep control over Karabakh:

We should have accepted that document then and worked to enforce it, he said.

Pashinyan replied: The recent statements by Kocharyan and Sargsyan prove again that certain people used the Karabakh issue to control Armenia. They hid this goal behind phrases like 'rights of peoples' and 'historical justice.'

The Prime Minister added that the negotiation documents will be released by the end of the year, and everything will become clearer.

This argument between Pashinyan and the former presidents comes before the parliamentary elections in June 2026. The tension also increased after Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to a peace agreement by initiating a preliminary deal in Washington in August 2025.

The Armenian opposition does not accept the peace deal and calls it a one-sided concession. The opposition says the document is based on concessions to Baku without considering Armenia's security.