Vice President J.D. Vance landed Monday in Armeniamaking him the first sitting president or vice president to visit the landlocked country in the Caucasus region of western Asia.
Mr. Vance is meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Yerevan to solidify a peace deal that President Trump helped to broker between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Foreign ministers signed off on the peace agreement at the White House last summer, but their respective leaders and legislatures must fully ratify the deal.
“We are very close to that point, if not there yet,” Mr. Pashinyan said at the start of his meeting with Mr. Vance.
Mr. Vance called the prime minister “a great friend of ours and a real ally in peace and development in this region of the world.”
“This is, of course, one of the oldest Christian cultures in the entire world, and so I feel a great amount of affinity to the people of Armeniabut also to you and to your administration,” the vice president said.
A plank of the peace deal will create a major transit route connecting Azerbaijan to its autonomous enclave, Nakhchivan. The route must traverse a strip of Armenian territory.
The Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity will be built by a U.S.-controlled consortium and offers a trade route in the region that bypasses Russia and Iran.
Mr. Vance is visiting Armenia after spending a few days in Milan, Italy, to celebrate the start of the Winter Olympics. He is traveling Tuesday to Azerbaijan to work on the other end of the peace deal with Armenia.
For decades, the countries fought over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which was heavily populated by ethnic Armenians but claimed by Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan’s military offensives drove out Armenians in recent years.
Armenia recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan in the Trump-backed peace deal, while Azerbaijan agreed to recognize Armenian sovereignty over the Syunik province, where the TRIPP route will be built.
“I believe that we are at the point where we can actually have Armenia serve as an important increment for economic development in this region of the world, which will both persist and maintain the peace agreement, but also could lead to a lot of prosperity for the people of Armeniaand importantly to me, to the people of the United States,” Mr. Vance said.
Yet some Armenians fear U.S. involvement in the transit project will impact southern Armenia’s autonomy.
Protesters gathered along Mr. Vance’s motorcade route in Yerevandeclaring the Syunik region is “not for sale” and “The Trap or TRIPP?”
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