Sandwiched between Iran and Russia and shaped by more than three decades of conflict, Armenia and Azerbaijan received rare high-level attention from Washington this week as US Vice President JD Vance visited both countries -- a trip analysts said underlined American influence in a region that Moscow has traditionally regarded as very much home turf.
The visit saw economic deals in both countries and sought to cement the US-brokered peace deal between them. There was also controversy when Vance's X account posted and then deleted a tweet referring to World War I-era mass killings of up to 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as a genocide.
“Russia is weakened because of its failed invasion of Ukraine,” Richard Giragosian, founding director of the Regional Studies Center in Yerevan, told RFE/RL.
“The vice president actually had deliverables -- practical agreements with both Armenia and Azerbaijan -- which made this more of a US planting of the flag in the region, a message to Russia,” he added.
TRIPP Corridor At The Center
Beyond symbolism, the visit carried practical and economic implications.
At the center of talks in both capitals was the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), a proposed 43-kilometer road-and-rail corridor through Armenia that would link Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave while opening a new east-west trade artery bypassing Russia and Iran.
The transit route forms part of the peace agreement brokered in Washington in August 2025 between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
“There is actually a lot of capital interested in this particular project,” Vance said in Yerevan. “There are a lot of people across the world who think they can make a good return by investing in Armenia and investing in this TRIPP project.”
Giragosian said Vance raised the prospect that “billions of US dollars are going to be invested in the operation of TRIPP.”
Another outcome of the visit was a deal under which Armenia signaled it will rely on the United States to help replace its aging Metsamor nuclear power plant, which generates about one-third of the country’s electricity and is due to close in 2036.
Pashinian said the Soviet-built reactor would be replaced with small modular reactors -- a newer technology now being explored globally -- despite competing interest from Russia. Vance said the agreement could pave the way for up to $5 billion in initial US exports and another $4 billion in long-term fuel and maintenance contracts.
There is also a nuclear safety risk to the site. The Metsamor plant, constructed in the early 1980s, operates in a seismically active area, making modernization a matter of broader regional security.
The US is also to provide Armenia with $11 million worth of surveillance drones. The sums are much smaller, but analysts said this reflected Armenia’s broader pivot away from reliance on Russia.
While Azerbaijan looks to Turkey and NATO standards, Armenia -- once heavily dependent on Moscow-- has increasingly turned to India and now to the United States and the West.
Strategic Partnership With Azerbaijan
In Baku, Vance signed a strategic partnership charter covering economy and trade, energy, connectivity, artificial intelligence, digital development, security, and defense.
This follows a similar agreement signed with Armenia last year.
However, unlike the Azerbaijan charter, signed under the Biden administration, the agreement with Armenia explicitly emphasized support for democratic institutions and the rule of law -- areas where Armenia is generally assessed to perform better than Azerbaijan.
Osman Gunduz, who leads prominent Azerbaijani nongovernmental groups focusing on the IT sector, wrote in a social media post that the deals signed showed that "US business values Azerbaijan as not only an energy country, but also a center for AI, data, financial technologies."
When in Baku, Vance also said Washington would provide "new boats" to help Azerbaijan protect its territorial waters.
“Obviously, it’s about possible dangers that may come from Russia and Iran -- other Caspian basin countries,” Rauf Mirgadirov, an independent Azerbaijani analyst based in Europe told RFE/RL.
In Baku, Vance also laid a wreath at the Alley of Martyrs complex, which commemorates Azerbaijanis killed in 1990 during a crackdown on anti-Soviet and anti-Armenian protests and also those who died in the conflicts with Armenia.
'Genocide' Post Controversy
Earlier, during his visit to Armenia, Vance visited the Tsitsernakaberd Armenian Genocide Memorial, an imposing site that's on the itinerary of most visitors to Yerevan.
Vance's official account on X described the visit as intended "to honor the victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide," and then deleted the post. Officials said the posting was made in error. A spokesperson for Vance said “this is an account managed by staff."
The issue is highly sensitive. Neighboring Turkey, a US ally and NATO member, acknowledges the mass killings occurred but insists they were not a genocide.
Dozens of countries do recognize them as a genocide. US President Donald Trump has not used the term, although the US Congress voted to recognize it as such in 2019 and Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, also used the term.
“The Armenian public and Armenians in America who support Trump are very upset,” that the post was deleted, political analyst Giragosian said.
There was also controversy in Azerbaijan, where Vance’s visit left imprisoned political activists and journalists uncertain whether their possible release was discussed with President Aliyev.
The vice president’s spokesperson mentioned discussion of prisoner releases, but it was not clear whether this referred to Azerbaijani civil society members or Armenian prisoners held in Baku.
Human Rights groups have extensively documented Azerbaijan’s poor human rights record, citing arbitrary arrests, prolonged detentions, beatings, torture, and forced disappearances -- allegations the Aliyev government dismisses.
