The Zangezur Corridor And A Future Civil War In China

 Facebook Post Published By Vartan Oskanian On 16 July 2025

Outsourcing Syunik: A Corridor Too Far

In today’s press conference, Nikol Pashinyan likened the idea of granting control over a corridor through Armenia’s sovereign territory to a third party with outsourcing national infrastructure such as the airport, railways, or postal services. This analogy is absurd, misleading, and dangerous.

First, outsourcing the management of an airport or a postal service is a commercial arrangement in which national jurisdiction remains fully intact. The Republic of Armenia continues to exercise sovereignty over its land, airspace, and legal framework. These are standard public-private partnerships used globally to promote development, modernization, and efficiency—while retaining full national control.

By contrast, the “corridor” concept—demanded by Azerbaijan and occasionally echoed by outside powers—implies something entirely different: the extra-territorialization of Armenian land. It envisions a strip of sovereign territory removed from Armenia’s legal, administrative, and security authority, ceded either de facto or de jure to another power (USA). That is not a commercial transaction; it is a derogation of sovereignty. The distinction is simple but fundamental: outsourcing services is governance; outsourcing a “corridor” is territorial concession.

Pashinyan’s rhetorical deception blurs this line, disorienting public understanding and dangerously lowering the bar for future concessions. To suggest that handing over jurisdiction of a transit route is akin to granting a concession to run Zvartnots Airport is to confuse the leasing of a service with the abandonment of a border.

If this comparison were valid, any colonial-era concession could be re-branded as modernization. But history teaches otherwise. Territorial sovereignty is not a management contract—it is the foundation of statehood.

By proposing to outsource control of a corridor through Armenia’s Syunik province to a third party (USA)—reportedly to facilitate unimpeded Azerbaijani access to its exclave, Nakhichevan—Nikol Pashinyan risks compromising Armenia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity under the guise of regional "connectivity."

A corridor under third-party control—regardless of who administers it—would set a dangerous precedent. It would effectively carve out an extraterritorial route through Armenia proper, subordinating national sovereignty to the transit rights of a state that not only refuses to renounce violence but continues to threaten Armenia’s security and viability. Such a corridor, even if nominally administered by “neutral” actors, would in practice serve as a mechanism of Azerbaijani and Turkish expansionism.

Personal Opinion:

By inviting a third party (USA) to manage the “Zangezur Corridor”, Pashinyan is playing with fire and seriously undermining the national security of Iran, Russia, and China. 

Let us remember also that many experts refer to the “Zangezur Corridor” as the “NATO, Pan-Turkic Corridor” that will link Turkey to Central Asia, and create the unprecedented opportunity to establish a Neo-Ottoman Empire that stretches from Turkey to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China. 

Keep in mind that Western Democracies, under US leadership, openly declared that the target of the next "Cold War" will be China. Once the Turkish hordes reach Xinjiang, it will not be very difficult to trigger a civil war in China, create mini statelets made up of different ethnic minorities, and thus end China's supremacy of mass producing consumer goods and dominating the world economy.

Multiple measures have been adopted by Turkey, with the blessings of the Trump Administration, to train and prepare an Uyghur force in Syria for a possible future deployment in China. The Uyhgur force has been temporarily lodged within the operational umbrella of the “Reformed” Syrian Army.

‭In recognition of the valuable contributions made by thousands of Uyghur fighters to the Syrian Islamist Revolution during the last decade, Syrian President ‬Ahmed  al-Sharaa, promoted Chinese Uyghur Commander Abdulaziz Dawood Khudaberdi,‭ ‬also known as Zahid to the rank of Brigadier General.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/western-powers-warn-syria-over-foreign-jihadists-army-sources-say-2025-01-10/    

Prior to the overthrow of the Assad regime in December 2024, Zahid headed the Turkistan Islamic Party's forces in Syria,‭ a radical Islamist militant group aiming ‬to establish an independent state in parts of China, and which Beijing designated as a terrorist group.

Now, what are the chances of Nikol Pashinyan’s reckless “Zangezur Corridor” policies to succeed without any serious retaliation from China, Russia, and Iran?
Can Armenia afford disastrous miscalculations by a leader determined to build a “Real Armenia” in the image of Sultan Erdogan and Petro-Dictator Aliyev?