A TRIPP to nowhere? Armenian intelligence warns of ongoing Azerbaijani threat

YEREVAN — While the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan publicly broadcast a message of peace, internal Armenian intelligence reveals a more sobering reality — one that directly contradicts the official rhetoric and suggests Azerbaijan remains a fundamental strategic threat.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has asserted that “complete calm” now prevails along the Armenia–Azerbaijan border, while emphasizing that Armenia will “never, not for a single second,” relinquish vigilance. His remarks followed the release of Armenia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (FIS) 2026 Annual Report on External Risks, published in both Armenian and English — an implicit reminder that peace, however promising, demands constant assessment and preparedness.

Addressing domestic and international concerns surrounding sovereignty and the TRIPP initiative, Pashinyan dismissed fears as unfounded, describing the project as primarily investment-driven. “Politics is gradually moving to the background,” he said. “The project is becoming an economic one.” 

Pashinyan further outlined a vision of deepening regional integration, noting that Armenian and Azerbaijani energy systems would be interconnected, operating under reciprocal and equal conditions for both imports and exports. According to the prime minister, Armenians are already experiencing tangible benefits — from lower fuel prices to wheat imports from Russia and Kazakhstan — evidence, he argued, of the practical dividends of cooperation.

Across the border, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev echoed the narrative of transition, announcing in Davos that Yerevan and Baku have “closed the chapter of war” and embarked on a peace-building process. 

Speaking to Euronews, Aliyev described the current moment as unprecedented in Azerbaijan’s modern history. “We have been living in peace for only five or six months,” he said. “We are still getting used to it. Throughout our independence, we have never truly lived in peace. This is a unique feeling — and a remarkable opportunity.”

Aliyev portrayed the South Caucasus as entering a new phase of development, noting that restrictions on cargo transportation to Armenia have been lifted and that Azerbaijan has begun supplying essential goods — particularly petroleum products — on which Armenia is heavily dependent. He framed these steps as mutually beneficial and indicative of a broader shift from confrontation to cooperation.

The Azerbaijani president reflected on the decision to halt the cycle of violence. “We could have continued as things were,” he said, “but that would have led to new military operations, more pain, suffering and casualties. In short, the war would never have ended. Someone had to stop it — and we decided to stop.”

Yet, Armenia’s intelligence report paints a more complicated picture. While it notes that the likelihood of military escalation in 2026 has become “almost improbable” following the Aug. 8, 2025 Washington agreement, the report highlights persistent and long-term risks.

FIS warns that Azerbaijan’s promotion of the “Western Azerbaijan” concept and the “return of Western Azerbaijanis” constitutes a significant threat to peace-building. Publications on the theme increased by 36 percent in the 138 days following the Washington declaration compared with the 138 days prior, suggesting a deliberate intensification of propaganda. Analysts are tasked with assessing whether these narratives aim to shift conflict onto Armenian territory or serve as a bargaining tool in foreign policy.

The report also highlights Azerbaijan’s continued militarization. From 2023 to 2026, the country’s military budget rose by about 44 percent, while allocations to other sectors grew by just 7.4 percent. Some nonmilitary sectors even saw declines in 2026. FIS describes the pace and prioritization of this growth as incompatible with a post-conflict peace trajectory.

The intelligence service also addresses the government-backed TRIPP initiative, offering a cautiously positive assessment of its outcomes while warning of structural vulnerabilities. The report notes that “infrastructure geopolitics” increasingly allows state actors to use economic projects to create leverage and dependency. As a result, new regional economic, infrastructure and trade initiatives in 2026 are expected to remain targets for hostile actors seeking to exert influence through physical disruption, information operations or other destabilizing actions.

Beyond the Armenian-Azerbaijani context, the report expands the threat landscape to include regional instability, particularly the Iran–Israel confrontation. FIS warns that, in 2026, the risk of renewed reciprocal strikes between Israel and Iran will persist, further complicating Armenia’s security environment and broadening the spectrum of external threats.

Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) Bureau Representative and “Hayastan” Alliance MP Armen Rustamyan has stated that it is impossible to speak of defending Armenia’s national interests “when Armenia is formally represented at negotiations, but Armenia itself is absent.” 

According to Rustamyan, the Armenian people are excluded from the process, while decision-making is concentrated in the hands of a prime minister focused primarily on preserving his own power.

In his assessment, Pashinyan’s peace rhetoric serves a domestic political purpose: securing international praise and converting it into pre-election propaganda. He recalled that similar claims were made in 2021 — that Pashinyan had come to power to deliver peace — only for Armenia to experience successive concessions in the years that followed. The current peace promise, Rustamyan argued, is “another balloon,” inflated for public consumption using the same tactics employed after the 2021 elections.

He further alleged that external actors are now openly assisting this political narrative. “Turks from one side, Azerbaijanis from the other, have become his campaigners,” Rustamyan said, claiming that an informal electoral process has already begun to frame the current developments as a historic achievement and secure public trust at the ballot box.

Similar criticism has emerged from analysts. Azerbaijan specialist Tatevik Hayrapetyan has drawn attention to what she describes as overt political support expressed by the Turkish leadership toward Pashinyan. While noting that Turkish and Azerbaijani backing of Armenia’s current government is hardly new, she argued that, even under such conditions, a leader genuinely serving Armenian state interests would have leveraged that “patronage” to extract tangible gains — such as the release of all prisoners of war or the opening of borders.

Instead, Hayrapetyan contended, Armenia has received only symbolic and negligible gestures, such as limited fuel supplies, while Azerbaijan continues to advance expansionist narratives like “Western Azerbaijan” and pursue policies of pressure and humiliation. In her view, these actions demonstrate that the so-called peace dividends are neither reciprocal nor strategic.

Parliamentary criticism has also focused on the practical content of the peace process. ARF member and MP Arthur Khachatryan has challenged the government to provide a single historical example in which peace is established while the occupying power retains its forces on the other country’s territory.

Referring to the Aug. 8 agreement and subsequent discussions on Jan. 14 regarding the TRIPP framework, Khachatryan questioned what Armenia actually gains.

According to him, Armenia is offering Azerbaijan a multimodal transit corridor, while receiving only vague promises of “mutual benefits.” Neither the Washington document nor the TRIPP-related papers, he argued, contain any concrete provision guaranteeing Armenia unrestricted access or a genuine end to its blockade.

While peace is being presented as an accomplished fact, Armenia’s own security institutions, lawmakers and analysts continue to identify Azerbaijan as a source of ideological, military and geopolitical risk.

In this context, the promise of peace appears less as a settled outcome and more as a contested narrative — one increasingly challenged by evidence that the structural drivers of conflict remain intact, and that Armenia’s national interests may be subordinated to political expediency rather than safeguarded through durable, enforceable agreements.