The USA and Russia want the "Zangezur corridor" but there can only be one "winner" while Armenians continue to suffer

A consistent demand from Azeri dictator Ilham Aliyev and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the opening of the so-called "Zangezur Corridor", a transportation corridor that would connect Azerbaijan proper with its Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic and onwards to Turkey by traversing Armenia's Syunik province without checks or controls.

The US and Russia both support such a corridor but for two very different reasons.

For the US, the opening of the corridor and, therefore, the unimpeded connectivity of the Turkic world will allow "NATO ally" Turkey to penetrate Central Asia more meaningfully beyond linguistics and culture and will ultimately expand in economics, military, etc. Washington hopes that Turkey's greater influence in Central Asia will weaken Russian and Chinese influence, and the opening of the corridor is a step towards that.

For Russia, the corridor opens a new route to friendly markets and even a way to bypass the Black Sea in a desperate situation. This is even more critical for Russia today, considering how the West severely sanctioned it.

Both the US and Russia believe that opening the corridor can undermine the strategy of the other.

The main difference is that the US does not feel the direct effects of its decision to empower pan-Turkism considering it is more than an ocean away from the Caucasus.

By cynically punishing Armenia for Pashinyan's decision to redirect his country's foreign policy in a provocative manner, Russia is empowering pan-Turkism, which is an incalculably greater challenge to Russia's own influence and interests in Central Asia than a pro-US Armenia ever would be.

Turkey will always have a linguistic and cultural advantage over Russia in Central Asia. Turkey also does not have the stigma of being the former coloniser and imperial master of the region, unlike Russia, and it would be naive to believe that Ankara in the future would not be behind anti-Russia initiatives in Central Asia, and with the backing of the US.

In the end, both the US and Russia believe the opening of the "Zangezur Corridor" will be to their advantage, but there can only be one winner, and while this game is being played out, 3,000 years of Armenian life in Nagorno-Karabakh is being extinguished.

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