From: fedora@fea.st   
      
   The Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity - a site visit   
      
   Feb 17   
      
   Julius Strauss   
      
   Last month I travelled with Kim to Azerbaijan, the oil-rich former   
   Soviet state on the Caspian. There I found workmen laying rail track   
   and tarmac for one of the world’s most ambitious transport projects,   
   which aims to bring goods from the mills and workshops of China to the   
   rich markets of Europe.   
      
   The Caspian Sea - which borders Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan   
   and Turkmenistan - is now at the centre of a global fight for power,   
   money, oil and the profitable transit routes from China to the West.   
   The buildings are broken-down and dilapidated, the railway tracks   
   underfoot rusting and in need of repair, and the Kalashnikov assault   
   rifle carried by the young border guard is an older model, it’s edges   
   worn smooth by years of use.   
      
   You could be forgiven for thinking, then, that this was just another   
   threadbare and impoverished backwater of the former Soviet Union,   
   abandoned by its residents, sinking ever deeper into decay.   
   But the reality could hardly be more different.   
      
   This little corner of Eurasia, an hour’s drive from Nakhchivan City,   
   capital of the little-known eponymous and semi-autonomous Azerbaijani   
   exclave at the eastern edge of Turkey, is now a vital jigsaw piece in   
   a new and enervated great game in the southern Caucasus.   
      
   A whole host of countries - Turkey, Russia, China, Iran, the EU and   
   the US - are getting in on the act, looking for geopolitical   
   advantage, more profitable trade routes, a chance to make a quick buck   
   or, sometimes, all three.   
      
   Not since the end of World War 1 - when the emergent USSR battled with   
   homegrown nationalists for control of the Caspian region - has it been   
   so vigorously fought over.   
      
   Indeed such is its allure - and so large the profits that might be   
   generated - that it has attracted the attention of none other than   
   that most high-profile and mercantile of property developers, Donald   
   Trump.   
      
   The route may be barely 42 kms in length but it runs along the south   
   of Armenia where that country borders Iran.   
      
   As such it controls the main land route providing access from the   
   Islamic Republic to Russia. But it also connects Azerbaijan proper and   
   the Turkic states of central Asia - Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan,   
   Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan - with Turkey and Europe.   
      
   If all the hype and the glossy brochures are the be trusted - and the   
   Azerbaijani and US government are betting that they are - this stretch   
   of forgotten land could become one of the most important trade routes   
   on the planet.   
      
   It’s value lies in the fact that it crosses neither Russia nor Iran -   
   two of the most heavily sanctioned countries on earth - and instead   
   provides a travel corridor through Azerbaijan - a country that in both   
   aesthetics and outlook is becoming the Dubai of the Caspian.   
   Traditionally this has been an area of the world firmly within   
   Moscow’s sphere of influence. But last summer, despite publicly   
   insisting that it was primarily interested in its own hemisphere - the   
   US waded into the region.   
      
   Trump first initialled a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan -   
   two countries that fought for 30 years - in the White House.   
   (He claimed to have ended that war. In reality it was won by the   
   Azerbaijanis, with significant help from the Turks, the Israelis, and   
   Syrian mercenaries, back in 2023.)   
      
   And then Trump authored a scheme to build what was christened the   
   ‘Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity’ - what else? - to   
   try and take advantage of the Zangezur corridor trade route.   
   Last week Trump’s deputy, JD Vance, followed up visiting Azerbaijan   
   and Armenia and signing a clutch of security and technology deals.   
   On two consecutive days in January a small group of us were taken on   
   an Azerbaijani government press trip - arranged by a PR company based   
   in London - to visit the new Zangezur corridor.   
   It was an expensive and logistically complex journey. As the TRIPP has   
   not yet been built it involved a dozen hours travelling in a minibus   
   from Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, to reach its eastern terminus.   
      
   As we arrived we saw the weathered remains of the small town of   
   Aghbend, ethnically cleansed by Armenian fighters in the 1990s.   
   The next day, again shepherded by government minders and PR agents, we   
   were taken on a 60 minute domestic flight across Armenian territory to   
   Nakhchivan, and then a further hour’s drive through falling snow to   
   reach the western end.   
      
   At almost every stop we were greeted by excavators, road-rollers and   
   government officials.   
      
   “There are 12 kms of tunnels and 140 kms of road,” Jayhun Yusifov,   
   head of a technical department, told us as we poked at some   
   freshly-laid asphalt. “This section alone costs two billion dollars.”   
   Armenia, perhaps unsurprisingly, is lukewarm about a route that   
   connects the two halves of Azerbaijan, especially as it runs through   
   its territory. It also worries that the corridor might impede the flow   
   of goods to Iran to the south - an important trading partner.   
   But Armenia has been ravaged by the decades of war with its richer   
   neighbour. Shoehorned between two enemies - Turkey and Azerbaijan -   
   and its border with both has been closed since 1993.   
      
   Armenia’s leader, Nikol Pashinyan, has now said he is keen on charting   
   a path of regional cooperation, even if it means making up with   
   Azerbaijan, a country that recently humiliated it on the battlefield.   
   Azerbaijan’s leader, the authoritarian Ilham Aliyev, hinted that if   
   Armenia doesn’t agree to the building of the corridor he might seize   
   it by force. But he has also said he would prefer a peaceful solution   
   to more war.   
      
   The US, for its part, is looking to cash in on the new project. It has   
   already insisted that one of its companies will build and operate the   
   new corridor in exchange for unspecified financial concessions.   
   Perhaps the country most worried by recent developments is Russia   
   which, along with the EU, still has a military observer mission in the   
   area. (More on Russia’s declining role in the South Caucasus soon.)   
   Trump’s new road could potentially cut them off from their important   
   ally, Iran, and hand effective control of that border to the US.   
   Moscow is also worried that the corridor will facilitate Turkey’s   
   reach to the east, where it is attempting to foster closer ties with   
   its ethnic cousins in Central Asia, another region where the Kremlin   
   once dominated.   
      
   In 1942 Adolf Hitler instructed his armies to push for Azerbaijan - a   
   country that was then producing three quarters of the Soviet Union’s   
   oil needs. It is possible that had they reached Baku the Nazis might   
   have won the war.   
      
   Eighty years on Azerbaijan is once again a hot commodity. But the foot   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)