Leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijani Nikol Pashinyan and Ilham Aliyev signed a peace deal on Friday in front of Washington President Donald Trump after nearly 40 years of bloody Karabakh conflict.
“We are establishing peace in the South Caucasus today,” Azerbaijan President Aliyev said. “Today we are writing a wonderful new history.”
Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan added that the agreement represents “opening a chapter of peace.” “(We) lay the foundation for a better story we’ve had in the past,” he added.
“The countries of Armenia and Azerbaijan are committed to ending all the fight forever,” Trump said at a joint press conference with two leaders.
“They have suffered so much over the years, and many people have tried to find a solution. The European Union, the Russians never happened,” he added. “But with this agreement we have finally managed to create peace.”
In September 2023, Azerbaijan regained full control of the Karabakh region after a lightning military campaign, and for the past year, Baku and Yerevan have made progress in normalizing their relationship.
Friday’s signature ceremony included not only Pashinyan and Aliyev but Trump as well, but the former enemy managed to repair the fence only if there were no further involvement of third parties, including Washington and Moscow. However, unlike Russia, the United States will benefit from a peace agreement.
“Trump Route” in the South Caucasus
Armenia and Azerbaijan have agreed to create a major transport corridor named the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity.
It connects mainland Azerbaijan with its Nahtiban region. The Nakhtiban is adjacent to the turkeys of Baku’s ally through Armenian territory.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said the new transport corridor “allows unhindered connectivity between the two countries while respecting Armenia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and its people.”
Azerbaijan and Naktiban are separated by a 32-kilometer patch of Armenian territory.
For Baku, the corridor provides direct land ties with the Naktiban, strengthening turkey relations and strengthening postwar profits through infrastructure diplomacy.
It will also strengthen Azerbaijan’s position as a key transportation and logistics hub on a global scale. Initially, Azerbaijan did not want to involve third parties without the involvement of the US, Europe or Russia, and did not like to be under Baku’s control.
For Yerevan, transport routes provide opportunities to further integrate into the wider trade network, diversify its abused economy and attract foreign investment. Geopolitical, it also helps Armenia to normalize relationships with its neighbors.
Yerevan was concerned that it could threaten Armenian sovereignty and wanted it to be under Armenia’s control.
The new Trump route operates in accordance with Armenian law, and the US will sublimate land into a consortium for infrastructure and management, officials said.
Trump previewed most of Friday’s plans in a social media post Thursday evening, saying the two leaders will sign an economic agreement with the US “to unlock the full potential of the South Caucasus region.”
“Many leaders have tried to end the war without ever succeeding, thanks to Trump,” the US president said on his true social site.
Former ally
Armenia and Azerbaijan have also signed documents regarding the dissolution of OSCE’s Minsk group.
“If you have closed the page on conflict, why do you need a format that deals with settlements?” Pashinyan said earlier this week.
Founded in 1992, the OSCE Minsk Group aims to promote the resolution of the Karabakh conflict, chaired by France, the US and Russia.
That dissolution not only marks the end of the Karabakh conflict, but also formalizes Baku and Yerevan’s distance from Moscow, especially given the fact that the two leaders jointly made formal demands in Washington.
Signing a peace agreement in Washington with the US president will send a strong signal to Moscow regarding the two countries’ commitment to finding solutions among themselves, but will redirect the focus of foreign policy to the West.
Moscow is trying to repair cooperation with both Baku and Yerevan, providing “mediation” and launching a disinformation campaign against Yerevan.
Recently, Russian state-controlled media has issued massive criticisms and numerous attacks against Pashinyan, accusing him of “trading” Armenian sovereignty for personal economic benefits and even calling him a “puppet.”
Previously, Moscow had also launched a disinformation campaign against Yerevan over false allegations of “Armenian bioweapons facility organized by Americans.”
Moscow repeatedly made similar claims about Ukraine’s US bioweapons facilities prior to the full-scale invasion. Russia has also made similar false claims about Georgia in the past.
Russia’s attempts to repair relations with Baku were completely destroyed when an Azerbaijani passenger plane crashed in Kazakhstan in December, with 38 of 67 people on board.
As Euronows reported exclusively, the investigation into the incident revealed that Azerbaijan Airlines 8243 flight was shot dead by air defense against Russia’s Grozny and left out of control by electronic warfare.
Azerbaijani’s Aliyev recently announced that his country is preparing to file a lawsuit in an international court against Russia over crashes on Azerbaijani Airlines’ planes.
Aliyev said he was ready to wait as long as it took, referring to an investigation into the Boeing incident with a Malaysian airline, which is being shot down by Russian extremists over the Russian-occupied Donetsk region.
“We are ready to wait ten years, but justice must win. And unfortunately, the current encircling situation has not contributed to the development of bilateral relations between Russia and Azerbaijan,” he explained.
Last month, Azerbaijan and Russia engaged in another rare escalation. Baku has detained the executive director and editor-in-chief of Sputnik, the Russian state news agency, following the attack on Moscow in the Azeri community in Yekaterinburg.
Two people were killed during the attack by the Russian Federation Security Bureau (FSB), and another 50 were taken into custody.