Washington: The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan shook hands as they joined President Donald Trump at the White House on Friday for a peace summit where they signed an agreement aimed at ending decades of conflict.
The two countries in the South Caucasus signed agreements with each other and the US that will reopen key transportation routes while allowing the US to seize on Russia’s declining influence in the region. The deal includes an agreement that will create a major transit corridor to be named the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, the White House said.
Trump said at the White House on Friday that naming the route after him was “a great honour for me” but “I didn’t ask for this.”
A senior administration official, on a call before the event with reporters, said it was the Armenians who suggested the name.
At the peace summit on Friday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said the transit corridor will “create connectivity opportunities for so many countries.”
“We are starting the path toward strategic partnership,” he said.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called the agreement a “significant milestone.”
“We are laying a foundation to write a better story than the one we had in the past,” Pashinyan said.
Both leaders said the breakthrough was made possible by Trump and his team and joined a growing list of foreign leaders and other officials who have said the US leader should receive a Nobel Peace Prize — something he has coveted.
“President Trump in six months did a miracle,” Aliyev said.
Trump remarked on how long the conflict went on between the two countries and said of the agreement, “Thirty-five years they fought and now they’re friends and they’re going to be friends a long time.”
That route will connect Azerbaijan and its autonomous Nakhchivan exclave, which are separated by a 32-kilometre-wide patch of Armenian territory. The demand from Azerbaijan had held up peace talks in the past.
Trump indicated he’d like to visit the route at some point, saying, “We’re going to have to get over there.”
“The roadmap they are agreeing to will build a cooperative future that benefits both countries, their region of the South Caucasus and beyond,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said Friday. She added that the new transit corridor will “allow unimpeded connectivity between the two countries while respecting Armenia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and its people.”
Asked how he feels about lasting peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Trump said “very confident” as he welcomed both leaders to the White House on Friday afternoon.
Friday’s signing adds to the handful of peace and economic agreements brokered this year by the US, while Trump has made no secret of his wish to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in helping to ease long-running conflicts across the globe.
The peace deal between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda helped end the decades-long conflict in eastern Congo, and the US mediated a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, while Trump intervened in clashes between Cambodia and Thailand by threatening to withhold trade agreements with both countries if their fighting continued. Yet peace deals in Gaza and Ukraine have been elusive.
US takes advantage of Russia’s waning influence
The signing of a deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan, both former Soviet republics, also strikes a geopolitical blow to their former imperial master, Russia. Throughout the nearly four-decade conflict, Moscow played mediator to expand its clout in the strategic South Caucasus region, but its influence waned quickly after it launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Trump-brokered deal would allow the US to deepen its reach in the region as Moscow retreats, senior US administration officials said.
The Trump administration began engaging with Armenia and Azerbaijan in earnest earlier this year, when Trump’s key diplomatic envoy, Steve Witkoff, met with Aliyev in Baku and started to discuss what a senior administration official called a “regional reset.”
Negotiations over who will develop the Trump Route — which will eventually include a rail line, oil and gas lines, and fiber optic lines — will likely begin next week, and at least nine developers have expressed interest already, according to the senior administration official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.
Separate from the joint agreement, both Armenia and Azerbaijan signed deals with the United States meant to bolster cooperation in energy, technology and the economy, the White House said.
Trump, Pashinyan and Aliyev gathered for the signing ceremony in the State Dining Room. That peace declaration was the first signed by both Armenia and Azerbaijan since the end of the Cold War, according to the administration.
Among the documents that that was set to be signed was a letter that asks the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to dissolve its Minsk Group, established in the 1990s and co-chaired by Russia, France and the US to mediate the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. The White House said on Friday that the group is no longer relevant.
The Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict has lasted for decades
The two nations were locked in conflict for nearly four decades as they fought for control of the Karabakh region, known internationally as Nagorno-Karabakh.
The area was largely populated by Armenians during the Soviet era but is located within Azerbaijan. The two nations battled for control of the region through multiple violent clashes that left tens of thousands of people dead over the decades, all while international mediation efforts failed.
Most recently, Azerbaijan reclaimed all of Karabakh in 2023 and had been in talks with Armenia to normalise ties. Azerbaijan’s insistence on a land bridge to Nakhchivan had been a major sticking point, because while Azerbaijan did not trust Armenia to control the so-called Zangezur corridor, Armenia resisted control by a third party because it viewed it as a breach of sovereignty.
But the prospect of closer ties with the United States, as well as being able to move in and out of the landlocked nation more freely without having to access Georgia or Iran, helped entice Armenia on the broader agreement, according to US officials.
Meanwhile, Russia stood back when Azerbaijan reclaimed control of Karabakh in the September 2023 offensive, angering Armenia, which has moved to shed Russian influence and turn westward. Azerbaijan, emboldened by its victory in Karabakh, also has become increasingly defiant in its relations with Moscow.
AP