Washington – Armenian and Azerbaijan leaders set their hands on Friday at a Peace Summit in the White House before signing an agreement destined to end decades of conflict.
President Donald Trump was in the middle when the president of Azerbaiyani, Ilham Aliyev, and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan flanked him on both sides. While the two extended their arms in front of Trump to shake hands, the American leader extended his hand and pressed his hands around his own.
The two countries in the South Caucasus signed agreements with each other and the US. Which will reopen key transport routes while allowing the United States to take advantage of Russia’s influence on the region. The agreement includes an agreement that will create an important transit corridor to be appointed the Trump route for international peace and prosperity, said the White House.
Trump said at the White House on Friday to name the route after him was “a great honor for me”, but “I didn’t ask for this.” A senior administration official, in a call before the event with journalists, said it was the Armenians who suggested the name.
Trump has tried to be known as a peacemaker and did not hide the fact that a Nobel Peace Prize greed. Friday’s firm adds to a series of economic and peace agreements negotiated by the United States this year.
Both leaders said the progress was possible by Trump and his team.
“We are sitting a basis for writing a better story than we had in the past,” said Pashinyan, qualifying the agreement as a “significant milestone.”
“President Trump in six months did a miracle,” said Aliyev.
Trump commented how long the conflict between the two countries spent. “Thirty -five years fought, and now they are friends and they will be friends for a long time,” he said.
That route will connect to Azerbaijan and its autonomous unleashed of Nakhchivan, which are separated by a 32 -kilometer wide armenonium patch (20 miles wide). Azerbaijan’s demand had delayed peace conversations in the past.
For Azerbaijan, an important producer of oil and gas, the route also provides a more direct link with Türkiye and from now on to Europe.
Trump said he would like to visit the route, saying: “We will have to get there.”
When asked how he feels about lasting peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Trump said “very safe.”
Aliyev and Pashinyan joined on Friday to a growing list of foreign leaders and other officials who have said that Trump should receive the Nobel Peace Prize for their role in helping to relieve long -standing conflicts worldwide.
The peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda helped to finish the conflict of decades in the east of the Congo, and the United States measured the fire between India and Pakistan, while Trump intervened in clashes between Cambodia and Thailand by threatening to retain commercial agreements with both countries if their fights continued. However, peace agreements in Gaza and Ukraine have been difficult to achieve.
The United States takes advantage of Russia’s diminishing influence
The signing of an agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, both ancient Soviet republics, also attacks a geopolitical blow to their former imperial teacher, Russia. Throughout the conflict of almost four decades, Moscow played mediator to expand its influence in the strategic region of the South Caucasus, but its influence decreased rapidly after launching the large -scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The agreement negotiated by Trump would allow the United States to deepen its scope in the region as Moscow portrayed, said the senior officers of the US administration.
The Trump administration began to interact with Armenia and Azerbaijan seriously earlier this year, when Trump’s key diplomatic envoy, Steve Witkoff, met with Aliyev in Baku and began to discuss what a senior administration official called a “regional restart.”
The negotiations on who will develop the Trump route, which will eventually include a railway line, oil and gas pipes, and fiber optic lines, will probably begin next week, and at least nine developers have already expressed interest, according to the senior administration official, which informed journalists on anonymity condition.
They separate from the joint agreement, both Armenia and Azerbaiyan signed agreements with the United States with the intention of strengthening cooperation in energy, technology and economy, said the White House.
Trump observed much of Friday’s plan on a social media post on Thursday night, in which he said the agreements “would completely unlock the potential” of the southern region of the Caucasus.
“Many leaders have tried to end the war, without success, so far, thanks to ‘Trump’,” Trump said in his social site.
The Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict has lasted decades
The two nations were locked in conflict for almost four decades while fighting for the control of the Karabakh region, internationally known as Nagorno-Karabakh.
The area was largely populated by Armenians during the Soviet era, but is located within Azerbaijan. The two nations fought for the control of the region through multiple violent confrontations that left tens of thousands of people dead for decades, all while international mediation efforts failed.
More recently, Azerbaijan recovered all Karabakh in 2023 and had been in conversations with Armenia to normalize ties. Azerbaijan’s insistence on a land bridge towards Nakhchivan had been a great conflict point, because although Azerbaiyan did not trust Armenia to control the so -called Zangezur corridor, Armenia resisted control by a third party because he saw him as a breach of sovereignty.
But the perspective of the closest ties with the United States, in addition to being able to enter and leave the nation without coastline more freely without having to access Georgia or Iran, helped to attract Armenia to Armenia to the broader agreement, according to US officials.
Meanwhile, Russia retired when Azerbaijan regained Karabakh control in the September 2023 offensive, which angry Armenia, which has moved to spill Russian influence and turn west. Azerbaijan, emboldened by his victory in Karabakh, has also become increasingly challenging in his relations with Moscow.
