Trump declares that Azerbaijan and Armenia have reached a peace deal.

During a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday, Azerbaijan and Armenia inked a U.S.-brokered peace deal that would advance their full normalization of relations and strengthen their bilateral economic ties following decades of hostility.
If it is successful, the agreement between the adversaries of the South Caucasus would be a major achievement for the Trump administration and would undoubtedly shock Moscow, which considers the region to be under its sphere of influence.

“It’s a long time – 35 years – they fought and now they’re friends, and they’re going to be friends for a long time,” Trump said at a signing ceremony at the White House, where he was flanked by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

Since Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani territory mostly inhabited by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with Armenia’s help in the late 1980s, tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan have existed.

When Azerbaijan regained complete control of the area in 2023, nearly all of the 100,000 ethnic Armenians living there fled to Armenia. According to Trump, the two nations agreed to put an end to hostilities, establish diplomatic ties, and respect one another’s territorial integrity.

According to the White House, the deal gives the United States the only right to construct a vital transit route in the South Caucasus, which would enable increased exports of oil and other commodities. Trump said that in order to increase collaboration on trade, energy, and technology—including artificial intelligence—the US inked distinct agreements with each nation.

According to him, limitations on defense cooperation between the US and Azerbaijan have also been removed, which may possibly concern Moscow. Both presidents declared they would nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize and commended him for his role in bringing the conflict to a close.

In the first few months of his second term, Trump has made an effort to portray himself as a world mediator. He is credited by the White House with negotiating peace agreements between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan and India, and Cambodia and Thailand, as well as a truce between Cambodia and Thailand.