The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are expected to sign a US-brokered peace deal that could end decades of conflict when their leaders are hosted by US President Donald Trump in the White House on August 8.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev will also sign agreements with the United States to "pursue Economic opportunities together, so we can fully unlock the potential of the South Caucasus Region," Trump said on Truth Social on August 7.
"Many Leaders have tried to end the War, with no success, until now, thanks to 'TRUMP,'" Trump wrote, adding that it would be an "an official peace signing ceremony."
Pashinian is already in Washington and on August 7 visited the Museum of the Bible, his press service said.
Promoting Peace And Prosperity
The press serviceon August 6 said Pashinian would visit the United States and hold a bilateral meeting with Trump and a trilateral meeting with Trump and Aliyev "to promote peace, prosperity, and economic cooperation in the region."
However, until Trump's social media posts on August 7 there was no definitive statements from any of the three governments on whether a peace agreement would be signed.
The economic agreements could set the stage for a reopening of a strategic transportation corridor across the South Caucasus that has been shut since the early 1990s.
The agreements, according to the US officials quoted in media reports on condition of anonymity, would give the US leasing rights to develop the Zangezur corridor and name it the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).
It would link Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan region, which is separated from the rest of the country by an arm of Armenian territory 32 kilometers wide and would eventually include a rail line, oil and gas lines, and fiber optic lines, allowing for the movement of goods and eventually people.
The deal does not call for the United States to pay for the construction of the transit corridor, but instead calls on private corporations to develop it. The deal was reached after a visit earlier this year by US special envoy Steve Witkoff to Baku and continued talks between the parties.
Post-War Fence-Mending
Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two major wars over a region known as Nagorno-Karabakh since they gained independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The two South Caucasus nations have taken significant steps to mend relations since the last major armed conflict in 2020 and the subsequent exodus of the ethnic Armenian population from the disputed region that officials in Yerevan now recognize as a sovereign Azerbaijani territory.
Although the internationally hailed finalization of a peace agreement text was announced in March after years of bilateral negotiations, the document has yet to be signed.
Azerbaijan has repeatedly made its signing conditional on Armenia removing from its constitution a reference to the 1990 Declaration of Independence that in turn cites a 1989 unification act adopted by the legislative bodies of Soviet Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh and agreeing to disband the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) -- the only international mediating body, spearheaded by the United States, France, and Russia, that had for decades sought a negotiated settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Armenia has effectively agreed to both demands, maintaining, however, that as a matter of principle the adoption of a new constitution in the next couple of years should remain Armenia's internal matter and that a joint application to the OSCE to disband the Minsk Group can occur simultaneously with the signing of the peace agreement. Yet these are not the only questions standing in the way of a final agreement.
Border Issues
In another diplomatic breakthrough welcomed by the international community, Armenia and Azerbaijan conducted the first-ever delimitation and demarcation of a 13-kilometer section of their northern border in spring-summer 2024. As a result, the Armenian military withdrew from four uninhabited villages that were part of Soviet Azerbaijan before the war broke out between the two countries in the early 1990s.
Both sides agreed to continue the border delimitation and demarcation process, but over the past year no progress has been made on other sections of the border -- where Armenia claims Azerbaijan continues to occupy more than 200 square kilometers of its territory.
The Armenian opposition has denounced the controversial border demarcation and further diplomatic moves by Yerevan as "capitulation," calling for Pashinian's resignation. However, sustained opposition street protests and rallies that drew thousands in May and June 2024 eventually fizzled out, with the Armenian prime minister claiming that his government's pursuit of sustainable peace with Azerbaijan still enjoys broad public support.
The Zangezur Corridor
Under one of the clauses of the Moscow-brokered 2020 cease-fire agreement -- which ended the bloody 44-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh -- Armenia is to guarantee "the security of transport connections" between mainland Azerbaijan and its western exclave of Nakhichevan, ensuring "the unimpeded movement of citizens, vehicles, and cargo in both directions."
Armenia, landlocked by Azerbaijan and Turkey, has insisted any transit route must be part of a broader regional unblocking process and must respect Armenia's sovereignty, jurisdiction, and territorial integrity. Officials in Yerevan have rejected the idea and even the narrative of an extraterritorial corridor, calling it a veiled territorial claim by Azerbaijan.
In 2024, unable to reach a common solution, Azerbaijan and Armenia indicated that the connectivity issue would be handled separately from the broader peace agreement.
According to the 2020 cease-fire agreement, control over transport links between Armenia and Azerbaijan was to be exercised by Russia's FSB Border Guard Service.
However, following a series of events -- including the failure of Russian peacekeepers to protect the region's ethnic Armenian population during Azerbaijan's offensive in September 2023 and their subsequent withdrawal -- Armenia has shifted its geopolitical orientation, distancing itself from Moscow and aligning more closely with the West.
A Role For The United States
The talk about possible US involvement in the administration of the road as part of a solution to the lingering dispute emerged around the time of the July 10 summit between Pashinian and Aliyev in Abu Dhabi, where five-hour talks purportedly also focused on connectivity issues.
The US ambassador to Turkey, Thomas Barrack, in particular, indicated that Washington has proposed a 100-year lease on such a transport link in a bid to facilitate a peace deal between the two South Caucasus nations.
"They [Armenia and Azerbaijan] are arguing over 32 kilometers of road, but this is no joke," Barrack told reportersin New York on July 11. "It's been going on for a decade -- 32 kilometers of road."
Pashinian's spokesman, Nazeli Baghdasarian, dismissed the idea of a lease, but at a press conference on July 16, the Armenian premier confirmed the United States had suggested the transit of people and cargo through Syunik be administered by a US company.
Baghdasarian signaled Yerevan's readiness to "outsource" administration of the route through Syunik to a third-party, including a US company or a newly established joint venture, while insisting Armenia must maintain sovereignty over its only region bordering Iran.
"We talk a lot about railways and highways, but in this context we are also talking about pipelines, power lines, telecommunications cables, and that is an infrastructure that needs to be managed and created," he said.
Aliyev, in turn, reiterated his demands.
"Azerbaijani cargo and citizens should not have to see the faces of Armenian border guards or anyone else," he said in July, renewing pressure on Yerevan. "There should be no physical contact, and guaranteed security measures must be in place to ensure our people and cargo can pass freely."
The Armenian government has rejected these claims. Meanwhile, opposition parties in Armenia are calling for a broader dialogue -- not only about opening this specific transit route but all routes in the region -- with the aim of ending Armenia's ongoing blockade.
Reaction From Regional Players
Sustainable peace and the opening of a transit route through Armenia has the potential to link the oil- and gas-rich Caucasus and Central Asia to Europe, bypassing Russia and Iran.
Both Russia and Iran have expressed concern about a potential US presence in Armenia's strategic Syunik region, bordering Iran.
Moscow has accused Washington of trying to hijack the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process and sideline regional powers.
"The Westerners aim to transfer the reconciliation process of Baku and Yerevan to their tracks," Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said at a news briefingon July 24. "We also know where these tracks usually lead…. This can lead to an imbalance of the security system in the region."
Iran has also voiced strong opposition to any deal that it believes could jeopardize its northern border with Armenia.
A top adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has warned countries "in or outside the region" to stop seeking a land corridor for Azerbaijan that would pass through an Armenian region bordering the Islamic republic.
