Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan are essentially saying that the Trump Route could have unlimited scope. Unlimited in the sense that the communications infrastructure envisaged under the project could extend across the whole of Armenia. Judging by their statements, this means, for example, that the railway could run through Meghri, while a possible highway or gas pipeline could pass through entirely different parts of the country, even tens or hundreds of kilometres away.
Pashinyan declares that any part of Armenia’s territory can be used for any project. In effect, Nikol Pashinyan is putting the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia up for “lease” or “auction.” Tomorrow, for instance, someone might come forward with a proposal along the lines of a “Ursula Route” or an “Emmanuel Route,” and Armenia’s prime minister would give his advance consent to discussing the whole thing, at the very least.
Of course, the words “sovereignty” and “territorial integrity” would be written all over it, but the underlying approach has absolutely nothing to do with either. A genuinely sovereign and independent political actor does not declare its readiness to hand over the management of its territory to any international project through an outsourcing arrangement. Instead, it declares its readiness, commitment and responsibility to ensure the effective management of communications running through its territory—and is capable of building international consensus around that, rather than around the mechanisms and terms of outsourcing such management.
At the same time, by declaring his readiness to place the entire territory of Armenia at the disposal of ambitions of this kind, Pashinyan is apparently trying to allay the displeasure of other major players who feel that he has catered only to Trump’s ambitions. Pashinyan is signalling his willingness to accommodate everyone’s ambitions.
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Apparently, he will soon unveil a new formula for sovereignty, just as he did for independence. He used to say that independence meant replacing dependence on one actor with dependence on several. Apparently, sovereignty, too, means replacing the fulfilment of one actor’s ambitions with the fulfilment of several actors’ ambitions.
Hakob BADALYAN
