- The agreement includes American rights on the corridor of the South Caucasus transit.
- The agreement first marks frozen conflicts near Russia since the Cold War.
- Lift the restrictions on defense cooperation between Azerbaijan and the United States.
Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a peace agreement marketed by the United States on Friday at a meeting with US President Donald Trump, who would strengthen bilateral economic ties after decades of conflict.
The agreement between the rivals of the southern Caucasus – assuming that it holds – would be an important achievement for the Trump administration which is sure to shake Moscow, which considers the region as in its sphere of influence.
“It’s long – 35 years old – they fought and now they are friends, and they are going to be friends for a long time,” Trump said at a signing ceremony at the White House, where he was flanked by President Azerbaijanis Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have disagreed since the late 1980s, when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region of Azerbaijani, mainly populated by ethnic Armenians, separated from Azerbaijan with the support of Armenia. Azerbaijan resumed total control of the region in 2023, which prompted almost every 100,000 Armenians of the territory to flee from Armenia.
Trump said the two countries have undertaken to stop fighting, opening diplomatic relations and respecting the territorial integrity of the other.
The agreement includes exclusive American development rights on a strategic transport corridor through the South Caucasus which, according to the White House, would facilitate greater energy exports and other resources.
Trump said the United States had signed separate agreements with each country to extend energy, trade and technology cooperation, including artificial intelligence.
He said restrictions had also been lifted on defense cooperation between Azerbaijan and the United States.
The two leaders congratulated Trump for helping to end the conflict and said they would appoint him for the Nobel Peace Prize. “So who, if not President Trump, deserves the Nobel Peace Prize?” Aliyev said.
Trump tried to present himself as a global peacemaker in the first months of his second term. The White House attributes the negotiation of a ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand and seal the peace agreements between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan and India.
However, he failed to end the Russian war in Ukraine or the Israel conflict with Hamas in Gaza.
US officials said the agreement had been hammered during repeated visits to the region and would provide a base to work on full standardization between countries.
High administration officials told journalists that the agreement had marked the first end for several frozen conflicts on the outskirts of Russia since the end of the Cold War and said that it would send a powerful signal to the whole region.
The peace agreement could transform the Southern Caucasus, a region producing energy close to Russia, Europe, Turkey and Iran which is rolling up by oil and gas pipelines but struck by closed borders and longtime ethnic conflicts.
Armenia plans to grant the United States exclusive special rights for an extended period on the transit corridor, administration officials told Reuters this week. The so -called Trump road for international peace and prosperity has already aroused the interest of nine companies, including three American companies, said an official on condition of anonymity.
Daphne Panayotatos, with the Washington Freedom rights rights group, said that he had urged Trump administration to use the meeting with Aliyev to demand the release of some 375 political prisoners held in the country.
Azerbaijan, an oil producing country that hosted the United Nations Climate Summit last November, rejected Western criticism from its human rights file, describing it as unacceptable interference.
