Armenia premier did not at all think of Armenian people`s interests  in signing Washington documents - Robert Kocharyan 

ArmInfo. During negotiations with the United States on the corridor, Armenia could have insisted on building not just a 42-kilometer railway section, but one four to five times longer-all the way to Yeraskh. This was stated by Robert  Kocharyan, the second president of the Republic of Armenia, at a  press conference on October 7.

On August 8, Armenia and Azerbaijan initialed a draft peace treaty in  Washington, D.C., with US mediation. Following this, Yerevan and Baku  submitted a joint statement abolishing the OSCE Minsk Group, mandated  to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Independent Armenian  experts criticized this document, calling it an act of capitulation  and evidence of further concessions by the Armenian authorities,  including on the issue of providing a corridor through southern  Armenia.

According to the former president, in this case, the United States  would bear responsibility for the smooth operation of this railway.

"Would this have been easy to achieve? Yes, it would have been, since  the US benefit here is more than obvious. Especially since Trump  loves impressive, large-scale projects. In that case, Armenia would  truly have become a crossroads of the world. Against this backdrop,  Aliyev would have been forced to either seek new paths or abandon his  plans. The backdrop at the White House meeting would have been the  President of Azerbaijan, not the Prime Minister of Armenia. Why  didn't Nikol Pashinyan do this? Because he wasn't thinking about  Armenia at all. He was more focused on the photograph he'd been given  in Washington, which could have been actively used to resolve  domestic political issues. I also have a photograph with US President  Bill Clinton, signed by the latter, taken in the White House, but I  didn't give anything for it," the second President of Armenia  emphasized, adding that the photograph with Trump given to Pashinyan  was nothing more than a formality.

The second option, as Robert Kocharyan noted, would involve building  the road independently, without US participation. The road could  remain under its current name, the "Trump Route," but control over it  would remain with the Republic of Armenia. "We will try to understand  the cost of this road for our country in the future," the former  president of the Republic of Armenia said.

He pointed to the prevailing opinion about the potential for energy  supplies from Central Asian countries to Europe via the planned  route. The question is what energy resources are we talking about,  given that Turkmenistan sells virtually all of its gas to China, and  that country simply does not have excess capacity. The situation is  developing similarly with oil, which is shipped to the Russian port  of Novorossiysk, from where it enters the European market. The  Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline is approximately 70% operational.

Overall, according to Robert Kocharyan, the "Trump Route" is  primarily of interest to Turkey for achieving its geopolitical goals.

This route will allow Ankara to establish direct communication with  Azerbaijan and Central Asia, and Baku to restore communications with  Nakhichevan.

But most importantly, according to the former president, none of the  documents signed in the US provide any guarantees for Armenia's  security, nor are there any willing guarantors. These documents  contain no mechanisms for responding to situations in which their  terms are violated. Essentially, the "peace" declared in Armenia  depends on one person, who could have a bad dream one day and resolve  the Zangezur issue the next, given the current global geopolitical  situation.