Huseyin NurluUnder the Washington peace deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the US secured a 99-year mandate to oversee the Zangezur Corridor, a move that reshapes Eurasian geopolitics.
Though signed under US auspices, the deal was in large part architected by Türkiye, whose decisive role since the Second Karabakh War (2020) anchored regional stability. The corridor is now positioned not only as the backbone of the Middle Corridor trade route but also as a guarantor of cooperation and prosperity.
Its significance, however, extends well beyond the Caucasus.
By linking East and West while bypassing both Russia and Iran, it provides Europe and Asia with a resilient trade lifeline.
Its natural alignment with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) intersects with Washington’s efforts to counter Beijing’s influence.
The critical question is whether the US and China can forge a modus vivendi around this artery, or whether it becomes another front in their strategic rivalry.
Rewiring of Eurasian connectivity
The Zangezur Corridor is more than just a strip of infrastructure; it is a geopolitical hinge.
Proposed by Baku and backed decisively by Ankara, the corridor links mainland Azerbaijan with its Nakhchivan exclave through southern Armenia.
In doing so, it not only bridges two Azerbaijani territories but also anchors a broader Turkic world connectivity stretching from Central Asia to Europe. This makes Zangezur the backbone of the Trans-Caspian “Middle Corridor,” the route that bypasses Russia to connect China and Central Asia to European markets.
For the South Caucasus states, the Zangezur Corridor is not just asphalt and steel; it is an entry ticket into deeper economic integration.
Armenia and Azerbaijan stand to gain from the stability and investment tied to a functioning east–west artery.
For a region scarred by frozen conflicts, the promise of transit revenue, logistics hubs, and connectivity to Europe offers a rare incentive for cooperation rather than confrontation.
For Central Asia, the stakes are even higher. Landlocked economies such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan depend on reliable corridors to reach global markets.
Zangezur, as part of the Trans-Caspian route, provides precisely that, a way to link Central Asia’s resources and industries to Europe.
What makes this artery transformative is its ability to bypass both Russia and Iran, the two dominant gatekeepers of Eurasia’s transit routes.
By cutting across the South Caucasus and Türkiye, it offers a pathway that is far less vulnerable to the political risks associated with Moscow’s war in Ukraine or Tehran’s tensions with the West.
The 99-year mandate granted to the corridor underscores its permanence, a century-long promise that this passage will remain open as an artery of commerce and diplomacy.
The road to peace and prosperity
For Türkiye, this is the culmination of decades of strategic investment: from the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline to the Eurasia Tunnel, the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, and the Edirne–Kars high-speed railway.
Ankara’s long bet on connectivity is now paying off, positioning Türkiye as the indispensable hub of Eurasia’s arteries.
Alternative routes faltered. The Southern Corridor through Iran remains insecure due to instability and Tehran’s international isolation. While the Northern Corridor via Russia once carried over 86 percent of China-Europe trade, the Ukraine war turned it into a financial and political liability.
The shift has been stark. By 2023, trade on the Northern Corridor had collapsed by half. Meanwhile, the Middle Corridor’s traffic surged by 89 percent in 2023 and another 70 percent in 2024.
According to the World Bank, by 2030 freight volumes could triple to 11 million tonnes, slashing travel times and boosting China–EU trade by nearly 30 percent.
Yet infrastructure alone is not enough. Diplomacy and lasting peace are essential.
Türkiye’s role in enabling Azerbaijan’s victory in the Second Karabakh War, and its outreach to Armenia since, created the foundations for today’s Washington peace deal.
Perhaps the most surprising development is Armenia’s recalibration.
By shaking hands with Baku, Yerevan has embraced a pragmatic foreign policy shift. As a result, one adjustment is already necessary: the classic maps of the Middle Corridor are now outdated; they must be redrawn, with Armenia included.
With the opening of the Zangezur Corridor, Armenia can effectively substitute for, and perhaps even displace, Georgia as the key land bridge of the South Caucasus.
The logic is straightforward: while China has positioned itself in Georgia’s Anaklia Port, Washington is unlikely to allow that investment to overshadow its own stake in the Zangezur Corridor.
What once seemed unimaginable, Yerevan integrating itself into a Turkic-led connectivity project, has now become a reality.
By embracing the corridor, Armenia is not surrendering sovereignty but buying itself relevance in Eurasia’s trade map. The payoff could be significant: reduced dependency on Russia, greater access to investment, and a new role as a contributor rather than an obstacle to regional integration.
This shift does not erase tensions, but it signals that even Armenia, once viewed as the corridor’s greatest obstacle, has recognised the geoeconomic logic of connectivity. In the emerging Eurasian order, pragmatism may be Yerevan’s best strategy to move forward.
Any discussion of the Zangezur Corridor must be situated in the wider framework of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Since its launch in 2013, BRI has sought to weave a lattice of land and maritime routes connecting China to Europe.
Until now, the Middle Corridor has remained the underdeveloped cousin of the dominant northern rail lines through Russia and the southern maritime routes via the Indian Ocean.
Zangezur changes this calculus. By embedding Armenia and Azerbaijan into the Trans-Caspian artery, it strengthens the Middle Corridor as a credible alternative.
For Beijing, the corridor offers precisely what its planners seek: a resilient path that sidesteps US-controlled chokepoints at sea and the political risks of overdependence on Moscow.
In that sense, Zangezur was to be less a detour than a strategic hinge, a missing piece in China’s Eurasian puzzle.
For Washington, controlling the corridor is a strategic win, securing influence over the most viable BRI land route into Europe.
On the other hand, if Washington settles for such a narrow calculation, it will only squander Zangezur’s potential as the key to East–West connectivity, with the opportunity cost all the greater. Moreover, by opening a new front in the global US–China rivalry, it risks turning the Zangezur mandate into little more than a Pyrrhic victory once Beijing mounts its counter-moves.
At the crossroads of multipolarity
At its core, the question remains: can Washington and Beijing cooperate over Zangezur, or will it become another fault line of their rivalry?
The corridor’s pivotal role in East–West connectivity is self-evident for China, which sees it as a natural complement to the BRI. Yet the United States, with its latest moves, looks to hold the key: aligning the corridor with European energy security, embedding its regional policies more firmly, and simultaneously weakening Russian and Iranian influence across the South Caucasus and beyond.
But ignoring China’s stake in the project would undercut the very essence of the route, a resilient trans-Eurasian link. Excluding Beijing would not only diminish the corridor’s reach but also provoke it, casting the initiative as a dagger aimed at the heart of China’s three-pronged Belt and Road vision.
The Zangezur Corridor is thus more than a road: it is a microcosm of US–China relations. At one extreme, it can be weaponised into a zero-sum contest; at the other, it can serve as a shared artery of interdependence — proof that even rival superpowers can cooperate when global connectivity is at stake.
Cooperation is possible, even desirable, but hardly guaranteed. The broader rivalry, from trade wars and technology restrictions to military posturing in the Indo-Pacific, will not disappear. Yet a modus vivendi could still be forged: competition elsewhere, but coordination here, where both stand to gain.
If such an arrangement is achieved, Zangezur could transcend its geography. It would carry not only goods, but also the prospect of a peace–stability–prosperity triangle that resonates far beyond the South Caucasus.
Here, Türkiye emerges as the indispensable integrator — the actor capable of translating US governance and oversight, EU standards, and Chinese demand into workable throughput.
Its decades of investment in pipelines, railways, and cross-continental infrastructure now give Ankara both the political leverage and logistical capacity to act as the corridor’s operational mediator. In this light, a trilateral compact — Washington shaping the rules, Türkiye managing integration, and Beijing contributing utilisation and co-financing — could transform rivalry into managed interdependence.
The Zangezur Corridor will therefore be remembered either as the backbone of multipolar cooperation or as the next battlefield of renewed division.
To avoid the latter, Washington and Beijing must engage pragmatically, with Türkiye as mediator, turning a contested passage into a cooperative artery. The choice is theirs: rivalry or resilience.
