The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are anticipated to sign a peace deal on Friday (August 8, 2025) on the White House that might doubtlessly put an finish to many years of battle, President Donald Trump mentioned.
Mr. Trump mentioned Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev would even be signing agreements with the U.S. to “pursue Economic opportunities together, so we can fully unlock the potential of the South Caucasus Region.” “Many Leaders have tried to end the War, with no success, until now, thanks to TRUMP,” Mr. Trump wrote on Thursday (August 7, 2025) evening on his Truth Social website.
The potential settlement might doubtlessly put an finish to many years of battle and set the stage for a reopening of key transportation corridors throughout the South Caucasus which have been shut for the reason that early Nineteen Nineties.
Three U.S. officers, who weren’t authorised to converse publicly forward of the announcement and spoke on situation of anonymity, mentioned the agreements included a serious breakthrough establishing a key transit hall throughout the area, which had been a hang-up in peace talks.
U.S. to develop hall
The settlement, in accordance to the officers, would give the U.S. leasing rights to develop the hall and title it the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity.
It would hyperlink Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan area, which is separated from the remainder of the nation by a 32-kilometre patch of Armenia’s territory.
The transit hall is anticipated to finally embrace a rail line, oil and gasoline strains, and fibre optic strains, permitting for the motion of items and finally folks. The deal doesn’t name for the U.S. to pay for the development of the transit hall, however as an alternative for personal firms to develop it.
The deal was reached after a go to earlier this 12 months by Trump’s particular envoy Steve Witkoff to Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku and continued talks between the events.
Hostilities improve after collapse of USSR
Armenia and Azerbaijan confronted off for practically 4 many years of preventing for management of the Karabakh area, which was identified internationally as Nagorno-Karabakh.
During the Soviet period, the principally Armenian-populated area had an autonomous standing inside Azerbaijan. Long-simmering tensions between Christian Armenians and principally Muslim Azerbaijanis — fuelled by recollections of the 1915 bloodbath of 1.5 million Armenians by Muslim Ottoman Turks — boiled over because the Soviet Union frayed in its remaining years.
Clashes erupted in 1988 when the area made a bid to be part of Armenia. As the united states collapsed in 1991 and Armenia proclaimed independence, hostilities escalated right into a full-blown conflict that killed an estimated 30,000 folks and displaced about 1 million.
When the conflict ended with a ceasefire in 1994, ethnic Armenian forces backed by the federal government in Yerevan not solely took management of the area but additionally captured broad swaths of Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan reclaiming all of Karabakh
Decades of worldwide mediation efforts failed. In September 2020, Azerbaijan launched an operation to reclaim the area. NATO-member Turkey, which has shut ethnic, cultural and historic bonds with Azerbaijan, gave it sturdy help.
In six weeks of preventing involving heavy artillery, rockets and drones that killed greater than 6,700 folks, Azerbaijani troops drove Armenian forces from areas they managed exterior Karabakh. They additionally reclaimed broad chunks of Karabakh. A Russia-brokered peace deal noticed the deployment of about 2,000 troops to the area as peacekeepers.
Azerbaijan then reclaimed all of Karabakh in September 2023 in a lightning navy marketing campaign. Over 100,000 folks, practically all of Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian inhabitants, fled to Armenia in per week, fearing Azerbaijani rule.
Russia, busy with its conflict in Ukraine, didn’t intervene, angering Armenia’s management, which responded by cutting down its ties with Moscow and bolstering relations with the West.
Prospects for peace and higher relations
After reclaiming Karabakh, Azerbaijan engaged in talks with Armenia on normalising ties. As half of the negotiations, Armenia agreed to hand over a number of border villages to Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan additionally has demanded that Armenia rewrite its structure, which incorporates a reference to the possible reunification of Armenia and the Karabakh area. The authorities have but to current a revised draft within the face of public protests.
A key stumbling block in peace talks was Azerbaijan searching for a land bridge to its Nakhchivan area. Azerbaijan doesn’t belief Armenia to management the so-called Zangezur hall, whereas Armenia had staunchly resisted management by a 3rd get together, seeing it as a breach of its sovereignty.
It was not clear how that resistance had been overcome within the deal.
Russia, which has a navy base in Armenia, had beforehand proposed deploying its troops to safe the hall. Armenia, bent on cutting down ties with Russia in favour of nearer relations with the West, rejected the concept.
“Russia has been left on the sidelines, because the Kremlin has nothing to offer to Armenia and Azerbaijan,” mentioned Olesya Vartanyan, a South Caucasus skilled, noting that Moscow’s regional affect withered after it centered on the conflict in Ukraine.
“Russia now lacks resources to deal with Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Vartanyan mentioned.
The potential peace deal additionally would pave the way in which for Turkey and Azerbaijan to reopen borders with Armenia which have been shut for practically 4 many years, leaving the landlocked nation to depend on restricted transit routes by way of Georgia and Iran.
Turkey views the possible settlement as half of its efforts to increase its affect within the South Caucasus, whereas Armenia sees the reopening of the border and resuming commerce with Turkey as a high precedence. Pashinyan, who visited Turkey in June within the first such go to by an Armenian chief, has made normalising ties with Turkey a key objective.
“For Armenia, it would guarantee stability and allow access to the Turkish market, ports and investments, as well as its inclusion into key regional transport corridors,” Vartanyan mentioned, including {that a} peace deal would assist make Armenia a key hyperlink between Europe and Asia.
“Armenia has an extensive transport infrastructure since the Soviet times, including railways and highways that could significantly expand trade routes via South Caucasus,” she mentioned.
