Leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan have signaled that, as relations between the two countries improve, bilateral trade may eventually bypass Georgia, raising concerns in Tbilisi about the country’s future role as a key regional transit hub.
Speaking at a January 20 panel discussion during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev discussed the prospect of direct transport and trade routes between their countries. The panel also featured Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Turkish business leader Ebru Özdemir, head of Limak Holding.
Notably, Georgia was again unrepresented at Davos, marking the second consecutive year that Georgian officials were absent after reportedly not receiving an invitation.
“I am sure we will be able, one day, to receive this cargo directly through our own territories,” President Khachaturyan said, expressing confidence that Armenia and Azerbaijan would establish direct transportation links, including routes between Baku and Armenia and between Armenia and Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan exclave.
“We will overcome the problems that we created in the 1990s,” Khachaturyan added. “What is very important is that we are both looking forward.”
President Aliyev echoed this sentiment, stating that Azerbaijan has already begun economic cooperation with Armenia following what he described as the establishment of peace ‘de facto.’ He noted that Baku had lifted all restrictions on cargo transit to Armenia from Kazakhstan and Russia and that Azerbaijan has received a request from the Armenian side to allow transit onward to Russia.
“So we de facto unilaterally opened the corridors,” Aliyev said. “Yes, transportation goes through Georgia today, but one day it will go through Armenia. One day Armenian cargo will go directly through Azerbaijan—and that day is not too far away.”
The comments come amid gradually improving Armenian-Azerbaijani relations following a US-brokered peace agreement signed last August, as well as discussions around the proposed Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP)—a transport corridor intended to connect Azerbaijan with Nakhchivan via southern Armenia.
While the ruling Georgian Dream party has not issued an immediate response, opposition figures have voiced alarm. The Lelo / Strong Georgia party warned that Georgia is “losing its position as a transit country and a reliable partner to the West.” In a January 21 social media statement, the party argued that as Armenia and Azerbaijan advance new Western-backed transit routes, Georgia is “not only failing to gain a new role, but is also losing the opportunities it already holds.”
Photo: Ilham Aliyev/X
