Washington – President Donald Trump said it is expected that the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan will sign a peace agreement on Friday at the White House, which could put an end to decades of conflict.
Trump said that Armenian Prime Minister Nicole Pachinan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev will also sign agreements with the United States to “follow economic opportunities together, so that we can open the potential of the South Caucasus region.”
“Many leaders have tried to end the war, without success yet, thanks to” Trump, “Trump wrote on Thursday night on his social website.
The President of Azerbaijani, Ilham Aliyev, and Prime Minister of Armenia Nicole Pashinian, depict a picture before their talks in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates.
The Azerbaijani Presidential Press Office via AP
The potential agreement is likely to put an end to decades of conflict and pave the way to reopen the main transport corridors throughout the southern Caucasus that has been closed since the early 1990s.
Three of American officials, who were not allowed to speak publicly before the announcement and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the agreements included a major breakthrough in the creation of a major transit corridor throughout the region, which was hanging in peace talks
According to officials, the agreement would give the United States rental rights to develop the corridor and naming the Trump Road for Peace and International Floration.
Azerbaijan will connect to the Nakhshivan region, which is separated from the rest of the country with a correction of 32 km (20 miles) of Armenia.
The crossing corridor is expected to finally include the railway, oil and gas lines and optical fiber lines, allowing the movement of goods and people in the end. The US deal does not require the price of building the crossing corridor, but instead for private companies to develop it.
The deal was reached after a visit earlier this year by Steve Wittouf’s Trump envoy to the capital of Baku in Azerbaijan and continuous talks between the two parties.
Nearly four decades of blood shedding between the two
Armenia and Azerbaijan faced nearly four decades of fighting to control the Karabakh area, which was internationally known as Nagorno Karabakh.
During the Soviet era, the region, which is often held in Armenian, had an independent position within Azerbaijan. Long improved tensions between Christian Armenians and most of them are Muslim Azerbaijani – fueled by the memories of the massacre in 1915, which amounted to 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Muslim Turks – while the Soviet Union, which was built in its last years.
The clashes erupted in 1988 when the area made an attempt to join Armenia. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and Armenia declared independence, hostilities escalated into a full war that killed an estimated 30,000 people and explained about one million people.
When the war ended with a ceasefire in 1994, the Armenian forces supported by the government not only took control of the region, but also seized large areas of Azerbaijan.
Decades of international mediation efforts have failed. In September 2020, Azerbaijan launched an operation to restore the area. Türkiye from NATO member, which has ethnic, cultural and historical ties with Azerbaijan, gave strong support.
In six weeks of fighting, which includes heavy artillery, missiles and drones that killed more than 6,700 people, the Azerbaijani forces led the Armenian forces from the areas they control outside Karabakh. They also recovered wide pieces of cara by. The Russian peace agreement, in which it mediated the deployment of about 2000 soldiers in the region as peaceful lawyers.
Azerbaijan then regained all cabakers in September 2023 in a Litening military campaign. More than 100,000 people, almost all the population of the Armenian -Armenian Karabach, fled to Armenia within a week, for fear of Azerbaijani rule.
Russia, which is busy with its war in Ukraine, did not interfere, angered the leadership of Armenia, which responded by reducing its relations with Moscow and strengthening relations with the West.
Peace prospects and better relationships
After restoring Karabakh, Azerbaijan participated in talks with Armenia about the normalization of relationships. As part of the negotiations, Armenia agreed to hand over many border villages to Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan also called for Armenia to rewrite its constitution, which contains a sign of the potential of Armenia and the Karabakh area. The authorities have not yet presented a revised draft in the face of public protests.
There was a basic bloc in the peace talks that Azerbaijan was seeking to get a land bridge to the Nakhshivan area. Azerbaijan does not trust Armenia to control the so -called Zanzor Corridor, while Armenia has resisted strongly by a third party, and saw it as a violation of his sovereignty.
It was not clear how this resistance was overcome in the deal.
Russia, which had a military base in Armenia, had previously proposed the deployment of its forces to secure the corridor. Armenia, curved to reduce relations with Russia in favor of close relations with the West, rejected the idea.
“Russia has left Russia on the margin, because the Kremlin has nothing to offer to Armenia and Azerbaijan,” said Ulyssia Varthanian, the Caucasus expert in the southern Caucasus, noting that the regional influence of Moscow withers after focusing on the war in Ukraine.
“Russia is now lacking resources to deal with Armenia and Azerbaijan,” said Varthanian.
The potential peace agreement also paves the way for Türkiye and Azerbaijan to reopen the borders with Armenia, which has been closed nearly four decades ago, leaving the non -coastal country to rely on transportation, limited transportation through Georgia and Iran.
Türkiye considers the potential agreement as part of its efforts to expand its influence in the southern Caucasus, while Armenia sees the reopening of the borders and the resumption of trade with Türkiye as a top priority. Bashinyan, who visited Türkiye in June on this first visit by Armenian leader, made normalization relations with Türkiye a major goal.
“For Armenia, it guarantees stability and allowing access to the Turkish market, ports and investments, in addition to its inclusion in the main regional transport corridors,” Varanean said, adding that the peace agreement would help Armenia in a major link between Europe and Asia.
She said: “Armenia has a wide infrastructure since the Soviet ages, including railways and highways that can significantly expand trade routes across the South Caucasus.”
Copyright © 2025 by Associated Press. All rights reserved.