“Pashinyan’s position is no less difficult than Sadat’s after Camp David” Expert opinions on Caliber.Az

“Our perception and intention regarding the east–west railway is that the route should be as follows: from Azerbaijan to Meghri, then to Nakhchivan, and afterwards to Yeraskh. From there, it should continue to the Turkish border — Akhurik,” stated Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in his speech at the conference “Crossroads of Peace: Advancing Regional Connectivity and Cooperation” in Yerevan.

“We have only a very small section left to restore, and we have already started working on it,” Pashinyan noted.

He emphasised that construction of the Kars–Diluju railway — that is, from Kars to Nakhchivan — has already begun in Azerbaijan.

“The Washington Peace Summit is an opportunity to avoid spending several billion dollars, when the same route can be ensured here via the Akhurik–Yeraskh direction, and of course, we are working in this direction,” said the head of the Armenian government.

Pashinyan again mentioned the role of U.S. President Donald Trump in the ongoing processes: “Of course, the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process in the previous period progressed quite positively, but there were also obvious difficulties. The decisive factor that allowed us to reach this agreement was the personal involvement of President Trump.

Our schedule is as follows: by the end of this year, we will finalise the legal issues with the already formulated text; in the first half of 2026, we will make all decisions arising from it; and in the second half of 2026, we will begin construction work. Nothing prevents the implementation of the project, since all contentious issues are reflected in the Washington Declaration. All that remains for us is to implement the agreement,” said the head of the government.

According to Pashinyan, actual work on restoring the Zangezur Corridor, including its railway component, will only begin in the second half of 2026 — that is, after the parliamentary elections in Armenia.

But what will happen to the project if the former ruling forces — today’s opposition revanchists — return to power in 2026? Will they even agree to restore the railway through the Meghri section?

Well-known experts shared their thoughts on this with Caliber.Az.

Political commentator Murad Sadaddinov recalled that after the 44-day war, when the Armenian armed forces had more than enough officers opposed to Pashinyan, when there was a well-established network within the active church, and when opposition parties were strong and had a powerful platform for anti-government propaganda, they still could neither defeat him in elections nor overthrow him.

“After that, when we regained control over Khankendi and fully restored sovereignty over our entire territory, they made attempts again. And once again, it led to nothing. We didn’t see even any serious actions.

After all this — how could they possibly overthrow Pashinyan and come to power now?

Especially considering that the Prime Minister, already in the lead-up to elections, is systematically eliminating all potentially dangerous points. We’ve seen how he carries out neutralisation operations against church hierarchs controlled by external forces; how he has conducted purges in the army; how he neutralises revanchists around former presidents. These are judicial proceedings, arrests, and so on. In other words, Pashinyan is methodically preparing for the upcoming parliamentary elections.

And I would say that the majority of the Armenian population, as after the 44-day war, voted for him and will vote for him again. Because people understand that the former revanchist presidents drove the country to ruin, drove the country to war. That brought nothing good to Armenia.

And Pashinyan’s stance, his current policy towards neighbours, gives them hope for a normal existence for Armenia in the South Caucasus,” the expert believes.

As for the railway and routes through Zangezur, Sadaddinov noted that the following powers have an interest in their opening: the United States, the European Union, Türkiye, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and China.

“And just imagine: on one side there is tiny Armenia, and on the other — such powerful interested forces. That’s why I think there is no question of revanchists coming to power in Armenia. Yes, it’s just empty talk, some kind of chatter. Journalists, it seems, also circulate information for the sake of sensationalism. Yes, there are external forces interested in this, and their journalists talk about it too. But we see that in the five years since the 44-day war, they have achieved no results in advancing these goals.

Therefore, to talk about revanchists coming to power in Armenia, or that the opening of the railway could cause some problems, is completely detached from reality. It will never happen.

Most likely, it will go like this: Pashinyan will run in the elections, cleanse the parliament of the remnants of revanchist forces, and only after the elections will construction in Zangezur begin. Pashinyan will take more serious measures against former presidents and their entourages — in accordance with the crimes they have committed. That’s what I believe. Many of them will end up in prison. That’s what we will see,” Sadaddinov stated confidently.

The Chairman of the Political Scientists Union of Armenia, Doctor of Political Science Hmayak Hovhannisyan, noted that journalists should avoid using the term “Zangezur Corridor” unnecessarily, much to the delight of Nikol Pashinyan’s opponents — supporters of continuing the “Karabakh movement” and confrontation with Azerbaijan.

“Especially considering that Azerbaijan and Armenia, represented by their leaders and under the auspices of U.S. President Donald Trump, agreed on the official name for this transit route — the ‘Trump Route.’ Nikol Pashinyan has repeatedly insisted on avoiding the term ‘corridor’ for a reason. The fact is that our prime minister faces significant difficulties in disputes with his opponents, who are trying by all means to demonise the essence of the agreements reached under President Trump’s aegis, attributing ill intentions to Azerbaijan and claiming that Pashinyan is acquiescing to them.

They argue that Baku’s insistence on the term ‘corridor’ is deliberate, as it is based on a historical analogy with the so-called Danzig Corridor and that Azerbaijan supposedly intends, by analogy with the Danzig political crisis on the eve of World War II, to provoke a Zangezur political crisis in the near future and even attack Armenia…” the political scientist explained.

According to him, such a detailed description of the Armenian opposition’s discourse is necessary to understand the difficulties Nikol Pashinyan faces in the domestic political arena and how important it is to heed his call to avoid a term that evokes troubling historical associations.

“After all, Prime Minister Pashinyan is indeed facing a very severe trial: parliamentary elections — in the context of the continuing unrest among tens of thousands of Karabakh Armenians, who accuse him of betraying their interests; amid intense confrontation with the hierarchy of the Armenian Apostolic Church, supported, as people say, by the ‘Armenian Ivanishvili’ — billionaire Samvel Karapetyan; and against the backdrop of behind-the-scenes tensions in relations with the Kremlin… In these circumstances, of course, Pashinyan must rely exclusively on the support of his partners — the co-authors of the Washington agreements — Donald Trump and Ilham Aliyev. His position today is no less difficult than Anwar Sadat’s was after the signing of the Camp David agreements. Evidence of this is the harsh domestic political measures with which Nikol Pashinyan seeks to protect himself from the fate that befell Sadat.

I am far from intending to raise alarm, but I must say that today it is necessary to exercise delicacy, caution, and wisdom, so as not to pour fuel on the mill of those forces seeking to sow distrust and hostility between our peoples. Recently, while appearing on the Armenian television program ‘Noyan Tapan in Russian’, I loudly demanded that the comments section — previously closed by the editors to avoid constant quarrels and mutual insults — be opened. If you look, among a hundred comments on my appearance, there is not a single negative one.

People — both Armenians and Azerbaijanis — thank me for speaking about the necessity of peace, good-neighbourliness, and economic integration in the relations between our countries. We need to create an atmosphere in which no domestic political turbulence in our countries can have negative consequences for the implementation of our joint plans. After all, the ‘Trump Route’ is a grand geopolitical project that will connect Europe with Asia, and together — Azerbaijanis and Armenians — we will play a decisive role in its implementation,” Hovhannisyan concluded.