Azerbaijan and Armenia have reached a historic US-brokered peace agreement on Friday, mediated during an engaging meeting with US President Donald Trump.
This landmark accord promises to enhance bilateral economic relations for the first time in decades, fostering an environment of cooperation after years of hostilities and steering them toward full normalization of relations.
This crucial deal between the longstanding South Caucasus adversaries, should it hold firm, represents a remarkable achievement for the Trump administration. Its ripple effects are expected to unsettle Moscow, which regards this geopolitically significant region as an area of its own influence.
‘After a protracted period of 35 years marked by conflict, they have opted for friendship—a robust and enduring one,’ Trump passionately declared during the evocative signing ceremony at the White House. He stood alongside Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Trump emphasized that the two nations have pledged to cease hostilities, establish diplomatic relations, and honor one another’s territorial integrity.
US President Donald Trump holds the hands of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan as they shake hands between each other during a trilateral signing event, at the White House, in Washington, D.C., August 8, 2025. Photo: Reuters
The agreement includes exclusive US development rights to a strategic transit corridor through the South Caucasus that the White House said would facilitate greater exports of energy and other resources.
Trump said the United States signed separate deals with each country to expand cooperation on energy, trade and technology, including artificial intelligence. Details were not released.
US officials believe a peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan could prompt negotiations on the entry of Azerbaijan into the Abraham Accords, the series of normalization agreements that Trump brokered between Israel and four Muslim-majority countries in his first term.
He said restrictions had also been lifted on defense cooperation between Azerbaijan and the United States, a development that could also worry Moscow.
Both leaders praised Trump for helping to end the conflict and said they would nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize.