U.S. President Donald Trump (C), Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (L), and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan (R) maintain up an settlement signed throughout a ceremony within the East Room of the White Home on August 8, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Photographs
Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a U.S.-brokered peace settlement on Friday throughout a gathering with U.S. President Donald Trump that will enhance bilateral financial ties after a long time of battle.
The deal between the South Caucasus rivals – assuming it holds – could be a major accomplishment for the Trump administration that’s positive to rattle Moscow, which sees the area as inside its sphere of affect.
“It is a very long time – 35 years – they fought and now they’re associates, and they will be associates for a very long time,” Trump mentioned at a signing ceremony on the White Home, the place he was flanked by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at odds for the reason that late Eighties when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani area largely populated by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with assist from Armenia. Azerbaijan took again full management of the area in 2023, prompting nearly all the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
Trump mentioned the 2 nations had dedicated to cease combating, open up diplomatic relations and respect one another’s territorial integrity.
The settlement contains unique U.S. growth rights to a strategic transit hall by way of the South Caucasus that the White Home mentioned would facilitate larger exports of vitality and different assets.
Trump mentioned america signed separate offers with every nation to develop cooperation on vitality, commerce and know-how, together with synthetic intelligence.
He mentioned restrictions had additionally been lifted on protection cooperation between Azerbaijan and america.
Each leaders praised Trump for serving to to finish the battle and mentioned they might nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize. “So who if not President Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize?” Aliyev mentioned.
Trump has tried to current himself as a world peacemaker within the first months of his second time period. The White Home credit him with brokering a ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand and sealing peace offers between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Pakistan and India.
Nevertheless, he has not managed to finish Russia’s warfare in Ukraine or Israel’s battle with Hamas in Gaza.
U.S. officers mentioned the settlement was hammered out throughout repeated visits to the area and would offer a foundation for working towards a full normalization between the nations.
Senior administration officers instructed reporters the settlement marked the primary finish to a number of frozen conflicts on Russia’s periphery for the reason that finish of the Chilly Warfare and mentioned it might ship a robust sign to your entire area.
The peace deal may rework the South Caucasus, an energy-producing area neighboring Russia, Europe, Turkey and Iran that’s criss-crossed by oil and fuel pipelines however riven by closed borders and longstanding ethnic conflicts.
Armenia plans to award the U.S. unique particular growth rights for an prolonged interval on the transit hall, administration officers instructed Reuters this week. The so-called Trump Route for Worldwide Peace and Prosperity has already drawn curiosity from 9 corporations, together with three U.S. corporations, one official mentioned on situation of anonymity.
Daphne Panayotatos, with the Washington-based rights group Freedom Now, mentioned it has urged the Trump administration to make use of the assembly with Aliyev to demand the discharge of some 375 political prisoners held within the nation.
Azerbaijan, an oil-producing nation that hosted the United Nations local weather summit final November, has rejected Western criticism of its human rights report, describing it as unacceptable interference.