U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday announced that Armenia and Azerbaijan had agreed to permanent peace, unveiling the deal at a White House summit with the leaders of the two South Caucasus nations long locked in conflict.
“Armenia and Azerbaijan are committing to stop all fighting forever, open up commerce, travel and diplomatic relations, and respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Trump said.
He also said the U.S. would lift restrictions on military cooperation with Azerbaijan.
Trump met separately with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the White House, beginning at 2:30 p.m. (1830 GMT), with a trilateral meeting set for 4:15 p.m. (2015 GMT), the White House said.
The agreement includes exclusive U.S. development rights to a strategic transit corridor through the South Caucasus, dubbed the "Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity." U.S. officials said the agreement was hammered out during repeated visits to the region and would provide a basis for working toward a full normalization between the countries.
"We anticipate significant infrastructure development by American companies. They're very anxious to go into these two countries, and they're going to spend a lot of money, a lot of money, which will economically benefit all three of our nations," he said. "This is incredibly positive news for the future of the entire region."
Trump said that as part of the agreement, the US would be lifting restrictions on US defense cooperation with Azerbaijan.
For his part, Aliyev hailed the "historic day" being marked by the signing.
"We are today establishing peace in the Caucasus, which will open great opportunities, not only for our region," he said. "I'm sure that Armenia and Azerbaijan will find courage and responsibility to reconcile, and also the people will reconcile. We will turn the page of standoff confrontation, and bloodshed, and provide bright and safe future for our children."
Pashinyan said the leaders were ushering in a "new era based on the full respect for the sovereignty and territorial in the integrity of each other."
"Today's declarations which President Trump personally will sign as witness gives confidence and assurance that we're opening a chapter of peace, prosperity, security and economic cooperation in the South Caucasus," he said.
In a statement, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also welcomed the "historic peace deal."
"President Trump brought these parties together and brokered a deal that ends decades of conflict," he said.
"This is an opportunity for both countries to move forward and focus on unlocking the economic potential of the South Caucasus region, which will bring trade deals and prosperity for the American people and both Armenia and Azerbaijan," he added.
The White House earlier described the TRIPP as a "multimodal transit area" linking Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic to the west via Armenian territory.
Previous proposals to resolve the conflict included a route between Nakhchivan and mainland Azerbaijan known as the Zangezur Corridor.
Negotiations over who will operate the route are expected to begin in the middle of next week, and a senior administration official said that so far, nine potential operators have expressed interest, including three American firms.
Working groups are expected to be launched immediately after the deal is inked to iron out the details of the "roadmap" over the course of the coming months.
The leaders also signed a joint letter requesting the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe dissolve the Minsk Group, a mediation organization co-chaired by the US, Russia, and France to resolve the conflict between the nations.
Azerbaijan's crushing victory in a six-week war with Armenia saw Baku recapture swathes of its lands, which Armenian forces had controlled for three decades. In September, Azerbaijan launched a lightning offensive to drive away remnants of the separatists. The one-day offensive concluded with another victory for Azerbaijan and separatist leaders either turned themselves in or were captured by Azerbaijani forces days later. Azerbaijan and Armenia pursue peace talks through international mediation but talks have so far failed to produce a breakthrough.
U.S. officials highlighted the opportunities presented for both countries and U.S. investors through the creation of the new transit corridor, which will allow greater exports of energy and other resources.
"What's going to happen here with the Trump route is, this isn't charity. This is a highly investable entity," said one senior administration official, adding that at least nine companies had in recent days expressed interest in operating the transit corridor, including three U.S. firms.
Under a carefully negotiated section of the documents the leaders will sign on Friday, Armenia plans to award the U.S. exclusive special development rights for an extended period on a transit corridor that will be named the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, and known by the acronym TRIPP, the officials told Reuters this week.
Trump would sign a directive to set up a negotiating team to work out details for how to operate the corridor, with initial commercial negotiations to begin next week, one of the officials said.
"The losers here are China, Russia and Iran. The winners here are the West," one of the officials said. "Both countries that have been in conflict for 35 years... are looking and talking about full peace with each other tomorrow."
"It's being done, not through force, but through commercial partnership... with these two countries," the official said. "The joint declaration that we're going to see signed today is the first-ever peace declaration signed bilaterally by the two countries since the end of the Cold War."
Trump has tried to present himself as a global peacemaker in the first months of his second term. The White House credits him with brokering a cease-fire between Cambodia and Thailand and sealing peace deals between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo and Pakistan and India. He is also intensifying efforts to end Russia's war in Ukraine, eyeing a possible meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin as early as next week. Senior administration officials told reporters the agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan marked the first end to several frozen conflicts on Russia's periphery since the end of the Cold War and said it would send a powerful signal to the entire region.
"This isn't just about Armenia. It's not just about Azerbaijan. It's about the entire region, and they know that that region is going to be safer and more prosperous with President Trump," a senior administration official said. A peace deal could transform the South Caucasus, an energy-producing region neighboring Russia, Europe, Türkiye and Iran that is criss-crossed by oil and gas pipelines but riven by closed borders and longstanding ethnic conflicts.
