Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, top stories this morning

📌 The US, Armenia and Azerbaijan have begun technical work on TRIPP, a route that will connect Azerbaijan with its Nakhchivan exclave through Armenian territory. The three countries have agreed to establish the first two trilateral working groups, focusing on transport and electricity transmission. One of the next key steps will be to connect the route to other regional infrastructure. All three countries reaffirmed their commitment to launching the mechanisms envisaged under the project as soon as possible.

📌 Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that using the name ‘Artsakh’ for Karabakh in Armenia allows Azerbaijan to use its own names for Armenian cities and regions. He was speaking at a panel discussion organised by the Restart Foundation as part of its MaskOFF event.

‘We can say “Artsakh” and “Republic of Artsakh” as much as we like. We can wake up in the morning and say “Artsakh”, say it again at noon, in the evening, and even wake up at night to say it once more. Fine. But they will also keep saying “Basarkechar” [the Azerbaijani name for the Armenian town of Vardenis], morning, noon and evening. We can say “Artsakh” as much as we want, but they will also keep saying “Western Azerbaijan” [a term used in Azerbaijan to refer to parts of present-day Armenia where Azerbaijanis historically lived before leaving during the first Karabakh war in the early 1990s]. The solution is to sign a peace agreement and put these issues behind us,’ Pashinyan said.

📌 Armenian Security Council Secretary Alen Simonyan spoke out against the idea, discussed by some in Armenian society, of joining a Union State with Russia and Belarus. Speaking at the Second World Armenian Summit, he questioned Russia’s role during the 2020 war and the events that led to the exodus of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh.

‘I still have questions for our Russian colleagues: how did the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan start in 2020? Why did it last 44 days? How was the Lachin Corridor closed, and how were our compatriots forced out of Karabakh and into Armenia? I believe anyone who thinks Armenia should join the Union State of Russia and Belarus should be ashamed. I am against this idea. It must not happen,’ Simonyan said.

📌 Alen Simonyan also questioned why Armenia should become involved in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

‘Why should I put Armenia on the altar of Russia’s war with Ukraine? I disagree with that. I do not think there is anyone here who would agree that we should go and commit national self-immolation because Russia and Ukraine are at war,’ he said.

📌 Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova responded to Simonyan’s remarks, saying that ‘it was Moscow, and no one else’, that stopped the bloodshed in Karabakh in autumn 2020. She recalled that on the night of 9-10 November 2020, the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a trilateral statement on a complete ceasefire in the conflict zone.

📌 TRIPP is attracting interest not only from US and international businesses but also from companies already operating in Armenia, said Armen Grigoryan, former secretary of Armenia’s Security Council and senior consultant at Policy and Management Consulting Group (PMCG). Speaking at the Second World Armenian Summit, he said that work on the project had intensified following the political agreements reached at the 8 August 2025 summit of the three leaders in Washington, prompting businesses to explore opportunities to take part in its implementation.

📌 Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said he hoped the normalisation process with Armenia would produce ‘concrete results’. Speaking at a joint press briefing with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Baku, Aliyev said that he had been working towards signing a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan for more than a year, but that it had still not been signed.

📌 Iranian Vice-President Seyed Hamid Pourmohammadi, co-chair of the Armenian-Iranian intergovernmental commission, has arrived in Armenia on a working visit.

📌 Two opposition parliamentary groups and several extra-parliamentary parties, all with pro-Russian reputations, have announced an information campaign ‘in defence of Armenia’s independence’. They oppose the process of amending the Constitution, arguing that the proposed changes are dictated by Azerbaijan’s demands.

They also claim that the recent arrest in Yerevan of Russian billionaire and pro-Russian politician Samvel Karapetyan on corruption charges is politically motivated and amounts to pressure on the opposition for supporting the constitutional amendments.

Context: Armenia’s Constitution refers to the 1990 Declaration of Independence, which in turn endorses a 1989 decision by the authorities of Soviet Armenia to unite the then Soviet republic with Nagorno-Karabakh. Baku considers this reference a territorial claim against Azerbaijan and has made its removal a condition for signing a peace agreement. The Armenian authorities reject this interpretation, saying the constitutional amendments are needed by Armenia itself, cover a range of issues and are not being imposed by any external actors.

📌 Levon Zurabyan, deputy chairman of the opposition Armenian National Congress party, which has a pro-Russian reputation, said Nikol Pashinyan had managed to unite the entire opposition through his policies.

‘Nikol Pashinyan has achieved something unprecedented: through his destructive policies, he has united the entire opposition. Even those who refused to join forces during the June parliamentary elections have now come together to oppose constitutional changes and what they see as a loss of Armenia’s sovereignty,’ Zurabyan said.

📌 Nikol Pashinyan: ‘Criminal elements are leaving Armenia for Europe and telling people there that they are gay and are being persecuted in Armenia. Do you know why? Simply to obtain the right to reside there.’

Top stories in Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia from 2-6 November, 2026