The United States wins a crucial transit corridor as part of the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement. On Friday, US President Donald Trump welcomed Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders to the White House.
American officials told Reuters that the meeting in Washington will conclude in the signing of a peace agreement that includes exclusive US development rights to a major transit route across the South Caucasus.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been in armed conflict since the late 1980s, when Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani province with a predominantly ethnic Armenian population, seceded from Azerbaijan with Armenia’s support. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Since then, Russia has presented itself as a mediator, claiming this region as its sphere of influence, as Moscow controlled it during Soviet times. However, Russian actions have only led to the continuation of the conflict.
Now, a US-brokered peace agreement might change the South Caucasus, an energy-producing region bordering Russia, Europe, Turkey, and Iran that is crisscrossed by oil and gas pipelines but plagued by tight borders and long-standing ethnic tensions.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will meet with Trump at the White House for talks and a signing ceremony, according to American officials.
They will sign a framework aiming to establish a “concrete pathway to peace” and resolve a long-standing transit issue, the source said.
Azerbaijan has requested a transportation corridor via Armenia to connect the majority of its land to Nakhchivan, an Azerbaijani enclave bordering Baku’s ally Turkey.
Under a carefully negotiated section of the documents that the leaders will sign on Friday, Armenia intends to grant the United States exclusive special development rights for an extended period on a transit corridor known as the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, or TRIPP, American officials said.
The route will be operated in accordance with Armenian law, with the United States leasing the area to a consortium for infrastructure and management, according to officials.
The Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders are also expected to sign a document proposing the dissolution of the Minsk Group, which has been co-chaired by France, Russia, and the United States since its formation in 1992 to resolve the conflict.
According to US officials, a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan may spark talks about Azerbaijan joining the Abraham Accords, a set of normalization accords signed by Trump between Israel and four Muslim-majority nations during his first term.
The White House gathering comes as Trump attempts to position himself as a global peace mediator in the early months of his second administration. However, Trump has had little success in ending Russia’s war in Ukraine, as Russian troops only intensified bombardments of Ukrainian cities.
The meeting on Armenia-Azerbaijan in Washington will take place on the same day that Trump has set a deadline for Russian ruler Vladimir Putin to agree to steps to cease his invasion of Ukraine or face harsher economic sanctions.
