WASHINGTON– Azerbaijan and Armenia on Friday signed a U.S.-mediated peace agreement during a meeting with President Donald Trump, aiming to strengthen bilateral economic relations after decades of conflict and pave the way toward full normalization.
If upheld, the accord between the South Caucasus rivals would mark a major achievement for the Trump administration and is likely to unsettle Moscow, which regards the region as part of its traditional sphere of influence.
“It’s been a long time — 35 years of fighting — but now they’re friends, and they’ll remain friends for a long time,” Trump said during a signing ceremony at the White House, alongside Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been in conflict since the late 1980s, when Nagorno-Karabakh — a mountainous Azerbaijani region with a majority ethnic Armenian population — broke away with Armenia’s backing. In 2023, Azerbaijan regained full control of the territory, leading nearly all of its 100,000 ethnic Armenian residents to flee to Armenia.
Trump announced that Armenia and Azerbaijan had agreed to end hostilities, establish diplomatic relations, and recognize each other’s territorial integrity.
The accord grants the United States exclusive development rights to a strategic transit corridor through the South Caucasus, which the White House said would boost exports of energy and other resources. Trump also revealed that Washington had signed separate agreements with each country to enhance cooperation in energy, trade, and technology — including artificial intelligence — though no further details were provided.
In addition, restrictions on defense cooperation between Azerbaijan and the United States were lifted, a move likely to raise concerns in Moscow.
Both Aliyev and Pashinyan praised Trump’s role in ending the conflict and said they would nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize. The U.S. president has sought to portray himself as a global peacemaker early in his second term, with the White House crediting him for mediating a ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand and brokering peace deals between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as between Pakistan and India.
However, Trump has yet to resolve Russia’s three-and-a-half-year war in Ukraine or the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. On Friday, he announced plans to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on August 15 to discuss efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
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