In a statement issued on the occasion, Rubio said the United States and Armenia have already made “historic progress” on that front over the past year. He pointed to an agreement to open a U.S.-run transit corridor through Armenia which was reached during an Armenian-Azerbaijani summit hosted by President Donald Trump in August 2025.
“We look forward to advancing the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), strengthening economic connectivity, encouraging American investment, and helping unlock new opportunities for Armenia and the broader region,” he said. “In the coming years, we anticipate deepening the partnership between our two nations.”
In early June, Rubio and Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan signed a separate framework deal laying out practical modalities of the transit arrangement that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave as well as Turkey through a key Armenian region. The TRIPP would run along Armenia’s 43-kilometer border with Iran.
The deal came just days before Armenian parliamentary elections in which Trump openly supported Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s party. Pashinian’s opposition challengers continue to voice serious misgivings about the TRIPP, saying that it could undermine Armenian control over the Syunik province and alienate Iran.
Levon Zurabian, the deputy chairman of former President Levon Ter-Petrosian’s Armenian National Congress (HAK) party, on Monday described the TRIPP as a “one-sided geopolitical project” that will spell trouble for Armenia.
“It serves the interests of very specific states -- Azerbaijan, Turkey, the European Union, the United States, and Israel -- but is perceived as hostile by Iran, Russia, and China,” he told a news conference.
Following a recent visit to Tehran, Zurabian cited unnamed Iranian officials as warning that “if we see [the TRIPP] as a threat to our national security we will act the way we do in the Persian Gulf.”
Pashinian has repeatedly insisted that the TRIPP will on the contrary be good for Iran and Russia.