Armenia and Azerbaijan sign peace deal at White House, ending decades of conflict

The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a peace agreement at the White House on Friday, in a deal brokered by the US that brings decades of conflict to an end.

The two countries in the South Caucasus signed agreements with each other, as well as the US, that will reopen key transportation routes whilst 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.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan shook hands to mark the moment, with Trump in the middle, reaching up and clasping his own hands around theirs.

Donald Trump said that naming the route after him was “a great honour for me” but “I didn’t ask for this.” A senior administration official said it was the Armenians who suggested the name.

The two nations have been 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, whilst international mediation efforts failed.

Most recently, Azerbaijan reclaimed all of Karabakh in 2023 and had been in talks with Armenia to normalise ties.

“We are laying a foundation to write a better story than the one we had in the past,” Pashinyan said, calling the agreement a “significant milestone”.

“President Trump in six months did a miracle,” Aliyev said.

Trump remarked on how long the conflict went on between the two countries. “Thirty-five years they fought, and now they’re friends and they’re going to be friends a long time,” he said.

The route will connect Azerbaijan and its autonomous Nakhchivan exclave, which are separated by a 32km-wide patch of Armenian territory. The demand from Azerbaijan had held up peace talks in the past. For Azerbaijan, a major producer of oil and gas, the route also provides a more direct link to Turkey and onward to Europe.

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.

The signing strikes a geopolitical blow to Russia, which throughout the nearly four-decade conflict played mediator to expand its clout in the strategic South Caucasus region, but whose influence waned quickly after it launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Trump has sought a reputation as a peacemaker and made no secret of the fact that he covets a Nobel Peace Prize. Both leaders said the breakthrough was made possible by Trump and his team, joining a growing list of foreign leaders who have said Trump should receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Negotiations over who will develop the Trump Route will probably begin next week, with at least nine developers having expressed interest already, according to a senior administration official.

(information from The Guardian)