From winning the war to winning the peace: Hajiyev on ‘Zangezur Corridor’

Hikmat Hajiyev, Assistant to the president of Azerbaijan, used a briefing at the Azerbaijani Embassy in Brussels to present Baku’s case for closer cooperation with the European Union on connectivity, energy and regional security.

In an interview with EU Today and a small group of journalists, he framed Azerbaijan’s current agenda as a move “from winning the war to winning the peace” in the South Caucasus.

At the core of Hajiyev’s message was the “Zangezur Corridor”, which he linked directly to both Azerbaijan’s post-conflict strategy and the EU’s wider connectivity goals. He said the route “will have a transformative impact on the Eurasian transport landscape” and that Azerbaijan saw itself “playing a pivotal role in this process”.

According to Azerbaijani officials, work on the Azerbaijani section of the “corridor” is due to be completed in 2026. Hajiyev said Baku “would also like to see the European Union as part of this new transport composition”, including in the framework of the EU’s Global Gateway initiative.

He presented the “corridor” as a practical component of what he called Azerbaijan’s “winning the peace strategy”.

“War is over for Azerbaijan and conflict is over,” he said. “We need to solidify the peace on the ground and to make the peace also long lasting.”

Peace, he argued, “shouldn’t be only like the lack of war,” but should bring “prosperity and development” and build interdependence between neighbors. In that context, he suggested that Armenia could move from a “deadlocked entry” to a transit country as east–west and north–south links expand.