Memorable meeting at the White House: Baku, Yerevan choose peace Article by Associated Press

The Associated Press has published an in-depth article covering the peace breakthrough achieved by Azerbaijan and Armenia in Washington under the auspices of US President Donald Trump. Caliber.Az republishes the piece with some moderations.

“The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan shook hands Friday [August 8] at a White House peace summit before signing an agreement aimed at ending decades of conflict.

President Donald Trump was in the middle as Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan flanked him on either side. As the two extended their arms in front of Trump to shake hands, the U.S. leader reached up and clasped his hands around theirs,” the article reads. 

According to the article, the two countries in the South Caucasus signed agreements with each other and the U.S. that will reopen key transportation routes. 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.

“Trump said at the White House on Friday that naming the route after him was ‘a great honor for me’ but ‘I didn’t ask for this.’ A senior administration official, on a call before the event with reporters, said it was the Armenians who suggested the name.

Trump has sought to be known as a peacemaker and made no secret of the fact that he covets a Nobel Peace Prize. Friday’s signing adds to a series of peace and economic agreements brokered by the U.S. this year.

Both leaders said the breakthrough was made possible by Trump and his team.

‘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,” the AP continues. 

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.

That route will connect Azerbaijan and its autonomous Nakhchivan exclave, which are separated by a 32-kilometre-wide [20-mile-wide] patch of Armenian territory,” the article noted. 

“For Azerbaijan, a major producer of oil and gas, the route also provides a more direct link to Turkey and onward to Europe.

Trump indicated he’d like to visit the route, saying, ‘We’re going to have to get over there.’

Aliyev and Pashinyan on Friday joined a growing list of foreign leaders and other officials who have said Trump should receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in helping ease long-running conflicts across the globe.

The peace deal between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda helped end the decadeslong conflict in eastern Congo, and the U.S. mediated a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, while Trump intervened in clashes between Cambodia and Thailand by threatening to withhold trade agreements with both countries if their fighting continued,” the article pointed out. 

According to the AP, the signing of a deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan also strikes a geopolitical blow to Russia. Throughout the nearly four-decade conflict, Moscow played mediator to expand its clout in the strategic South Caucasus region, but its influence waned quickly after it launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Trump-brokered deal would allow the U.S. to deepen its reach in the region as Moscow retreats, senior U.S. administration officials said.

“The Trump administration began engaging with Armenia and Azerbaijan in earnest earlier this year, when Trump’s key diplomatic envoy, Steve Witkoff, met with Aliyev in Baku and started to discuss what a senior administration official called a ‘regional reset.’

Negotiations over who will develop the Trump Route — which will eventually include a rail line, oil and gas pipelines, and fiber optic lines — will likely begin next week, and at least nine developers have expressed interest already, according to the senior administration official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.

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.

Trump previewed much of Friday’s plan in a social media post Thursday evening, in which he said the agreements would ‘fully unlock the potential’ of the South Caucasus region.

The two nations were locked in conflict for nearly four decades as they fought for control of the Karabakh region. Azerbaijan reclaimed all of Karabakh in 2023 and had been in talks with Armenia to normalize ties. Azerbaijan’s insistence on a land bridge to Nakhchivan had been a major sticking point, because while Azerbaijan did not trust Armenia to control the Zangezur corridor, Armenia resisted control by a third party because it viewed it as a breach of sovereignty.

But the prospect of closer ties with the United States, as well as being able to move in and out of the landlocked nation more freely without having to access Georgia or Iran, helped entice Armenia on the broader agreement, according to U.S. officials,” the article reads.