Route via Armenia`s Syunik could pose threat to Georgia`s transit  potential - Mikheil Saakashvili

ArmInfo.Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's announcement of plans to create a new transit corridor in the region and launch direct flights between  Armenia and Azerbaijan places Georgia in an extremely difficult geopolitical impasse. This is the opinion of former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

"Ilham Aliyev's statement that today the transit route passes through  Georgia and tomorrow will pass through Armenia destroys everything we  achieved as a country in the 1990s and 2000s. Georgia has found  itself in an extremely difficult geopolitical impasse, which will  soon either end in our liquidation as an independent state or in  liberation from the clutches of the mafia boss Ivanishvili and the  country's return to the path of rapid development," Saakashvili wrote  on Facebook.

On the sidelines of the Davos International Economic Forum on January  21, 2026, the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan discussed the  geopolitical situation in the region and new transit corridors. Ilham  Aliyev and Vahagn Khachaturyan stated that cargo from Armenia to  Azerbaijan and back, currently transported through Georgia, will in  future be transported directly between the two countries. President  Aliyev stated that the new corridor will complement the route  currently passing through Georgia. Cargo traveling from Russia to  Armenia also currently passes through Georgia.

On January 22, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze commented on  the statements made in Davos and stated that Georgia's transit  function is not in jeopardy. As an argument for the non-threatening  nature of the alternative corridor, he noted that cargo volumes along  the Middle Corridor have increased sevenfold over the past five  years.

As a reminder, on August 8, 2025, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol  Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a seven-point  joint "Declaration of Peace" in Washington. It provides for a joint  appeal to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe  (OSCE) to terminate the OSCE Minsk Process and related structures, as  well as the creation of a transport corridor through Armenian  territory that will connect Azerbaijan with its Nakhichevan exclave,  surrounded by Armenia, Turkey, and Iran.

On January 14, the Armenian Foreign Ministry published the framework  document signed with the American side in Washington for the  implementation of the Trump Route for International Peace and  Prosperity (TRIPP). The 12-page document presents the project's main  objectives and operational mechanisms.

Among other things, the document emphasizes that Armenia intends to  sanction and support the establishment of the TRIPP Development  Company. The company is expected to be responsible for the  development of the TRIPP project, receiving an initial development  right for a period of 49 years. Armenia intends to offer the United  States a 74% stake in TRIPP Development Company, retaining 26%. This  partnership is expected to be extended for another 50 years, with an  additional ownership stake granted to the Armenian government,  bringing its stake to 49%.