The Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) is the US-backed transit corridor planned across southern Armenia to reconnect mainland Azerbaijan with its Nakhchivan exclave and Türkiye — the infrastructure centrepiece of the August 2025 Washington peace framework. Baku calls the route the Zangezur Corridor. This hub tracks Caucasus Business Journal’s coverage of its ownership, financing, border deal, construction and the Middle Corridor trade it is built to carry.
TRIPP — the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity — is a planned US-backed transit corridor across Armenia’s southern Syunik province that would link mainland Azerbaijan with its Nakhchivan exclave and onward to Türkiye. It emerged from the Washington summit of 8 August 2025, where Armenia and Azerbaijan initialled a peace agreement, and is planned to carry rail and road links alongside a gas pipeline, power lines and fibre-optic cable.
They describe the same geography. “Zangezur Corridor” is the name Baku has long used for a route from mainland Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan across Syunik; the 2025 Washington agreements branded the Armenian section TRIPP, under which Armenia keeps sovereignty over the route, including its law enforcement, customs and taxation.
The Armenian section is roughly 42–44 km through Syunik. It joins Azerbaijan’s new railway to the Armenian border on one side and, on the other, about 190 km of Soviet-era railway being rebuilt inside Nakhchivan, which in turn meets Türkiye’s planned 224 km Kars–Iğdır–Dilucu line.
A TRIPP Development Company in which the US side holds 74% and Armenia 26% for an initial 49 years; if the arrangement is extended by a further 50 years, Armenia’s stake rises to 49%. Armenia’s Constitutional Court ruled on 16 September 2026 that the framework complies with the constitution, clearing the way for the company to be formed.
Engineering surveys are under way in Armenia, and officials point to construction starting between late 2026 and early 2027. Azerbaijan says its rail and road links to the Armenian border will be ready in the first half of 2027, and Türkiye targets the end of 2029 for the Kars–Dilucu railway. No contractor, cost or financing plan for the Armenian section has yet been published.
The United States has committed $201 million to a new Trans-Caspian Enterprise Fund designed to draw private capital into the route and the wider Middle Corridor. The EU plans to invest €250 million in Syunik, and Azerbaijan has allocated AZN 258 million (about $152 million) for Nakhchivan in 2026–27 as the exclave’s railway is rebuilt.
TRIPP would create a second rail route between the Caspian and Türkiye — through Armenia and Nakhchivan rather than Georgia — and end Nakhchivan’s reliance on road transit through Iran, adding a southern branch to the Middle Corridor between China, Central Asia and Europe. Nakhchivan’s rebuilt railway alone is designed to carry about 15 million tonnes of cargo a year.