U.S. Brokers Peace Agreement Between Armenia and Azerbaijan

President Donald Trump is scheduled to host Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the White House on Friday for the signing of a U.S.-brokered peace agreement. This accord seeks to conclude nearly four decades of hostilities, particularly over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

A central element of the agreement is the establishment of a transit corridor through Armenia's Syunik province, connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave. Dubbed the "Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity" (TRIPP), this corridor is intended to facilitate the movement of goods and energy resources between the South Caucasus and Europe, bypassing Russia and Iran. The project will be managed by a U.S. consortium under Armenian jurisdiction.

The peace deal follows a series of conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the past three decades, most recently in 2023, when Azerbaijan launched an offensive in a disputed region, causing tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians to flee. A ceasefire in September 2023 averted a wider war, and the countries concluded talks over a peace treaty in March. However, negotiations aimed at cementing the deal had stalled in the months since, with discussions in Abu Dhabi in July failing to lead to a breakthrough.

U.S. officials have been working for months on an Armenia-Azerbaijan deal. Special envoy Steve Witkoff traveled to Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, in March. Aryeh Lightstone, former CEO of the Abraham Accords Peace Institute, has made multiple trips to the region as part of peace deal talks. The Trump administration has indicated that an Azerbaijan peace deal with its neighbor is necessary before it can join the Abraham Accords, as part of a plan to expand that agreement beyond the Arab countries that signed up to it in 2020 when they recognized Israel.

The agreement has elicited mixed reactions. The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) criticized the deal, stating it "would reward Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of Nagorno Karabakh’s 150,000 indigenous Armenians while compromising Armenia’s sovereignty and long-term security." Conversely, U.S. officials view the peace deal as a potential catalyst for Azerbaijan’s entry into the Abraham Accords, aiming to expand the agreement beyond the Arab countries that recognized Israel in 2020.

The signing ceremony is expected to include bilateral agreements between the U.S. and both Armenia and Azerbaijan, focusing on economic cooperation and development in the South Caucasus region.