Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev signed a historic peace deal on Friday at the White House in front of US President Donald Trump.
The deal, if it holds, would end almost four decades of tensions and conflict between the two nations over control of Nagorno-Karabakh in southwestern Azerbaijan.
“Today we are writing a great new history,” Azerbaijani President Aliyev said as he addressed journalists at the White House together with Trump and Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan.
Aliyev thanked Trump for bringing “peace” to the Caucasus region.
Armenia’s Pashinyan said the deal represented “opening a chapter of peace,” calling it a success “for our countries and for our region.”
He also commended Trump for his “legacy as a statesman and the peacemaker.”
Trump said all three of them had an “extensive” conversation and had signed “voluminous documents” related to a peace deal.
“It’s a long time, 35 years, they fought, and now they’re friends, and they’re going to be friends for a long time,” Trump said.
Armenia, Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh
Tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan emerged in the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani region mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia.
Azerbaijan took back full control of the region in 2023 in a military offensive, prompting almost all of the territory’s remaining 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
Speaking on Friday, Trump said the two countries had committed to stop fighting, open up diplomatic relations and respect each other’s territorial integrity.
The US president also said he was lifting restrictions on US military cooperation with Azerbaijan.
Transit corridor at center of Armenia-Azerbaijan deal
The wording of the agreement hasn’t yet been released.
But at the center of the deal is the establishment of a trade and transit corridor through the South Caucasus, which is to be named after Trump.
That route will connect Azerbaijan and its autonomous Nakhchivan exclave, which are separated by a 32-kilometer-wide (20-mile-wide) strip of Armenian territory.
The deal grants the United States exclusive development rights to the transit corridor, which the White House said would facilitate greater exports of energy and other resources in the region.
The demand from Azerbaijan for a transit route to Nakhchivan had previously hindered peace talks.
The two nations were also due to sign a letter officially requesting the dissolution of the Minsk Group, a now-defunct mediation body under the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Russia’s influence wanes in South Caucasus
The deal between the two former Soviet republics strikes a geopolitical blow to Russia.
Long after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has played the role of a de facto regional leader in the South Caucasus.
But Russian influence in the region has drastically weakened in the past several years, especially as it is bogged down in its war against Ukraine.
Armenia, Azerbaijan leaders say Trump deserves Nobel Peace Prize
Both leaders praised Trump for helping to end the conflict and said they would nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize.
On Thursday, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet announced that he had nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize for de-escalating a border conflict between Cambodia and Thailand.
In early July, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nominated Trump for the prize.
Trump has repeatedly praised his own diplomatic efforts, saying he deserves the peace prize.
Edited by: Sean Sinico
