US president says the deal will bring peace and new economic opportunities for the two rivals, but issues remain.
United States President Donald Trump has hosted his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the White House for the signing of a peace treaty between the two longtime rivals.
The US president said during a ceremony on Friday that he believed the two men would have a “great relationship” and that the agreement would bring peace and new economic opportunities to the region.
“I want to congratulate these two great people, Prime Minister Pashinyan and President Aliyev, for coming to Washington to sign this momentous joint declaration,” Trump said.
“The countries of Armenia and Azerbaijan are committing to stop all fighting forever; open up commerce, travel and diplomatic relations; and respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
The agreement will create a transportation corridor between the two countries, which have been embroiled in territorial disputes since the disintegration of the Soviet Union more than three decades ago.
Those wars were largely fought over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is within Azerbaijan’s borders but was previously populated by ethnic Armenians.
They were ultimately expelled en masse during an Azerbaijani offensive in 2023.
The deal grants the US exclusive developmental rights to the transport corridor, which will be dubbed the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity”.
“We anticipate significant infrastructure development by American companies. They’re very anxious to go into these two countries,” Trump said.
He added that the US was also signing bilateral agreements with both countries to increase cooperation in areas like energy, trade and technology, including artificial intelligence.
The deals would also lift previous restrictions on security coordination with Azerbaijan, which has faced scrutiny over its human rights record.
“I’m very grateful to the president that he lifted the restrictions that had been imposed on Azerbaijan back in 1992,” said Aliyev.
While Trump has hailed the agreement as a diplomatic breakthrough and an opportunity for economic engagement, it is viewed with bitterness by many Armenians.
During Azerbaijan’s 2023 military campaign, the country sought to bring Nagorno-Karabakh under its control.
But that military offensive involved a brutal siege that rights groups say amounted to the restriction of food as a weapon of war. The conflict culminated in the forcible expulsion of the territory’s ethnic Armenian population.
Images of displaced Armenians fleeing with their possessions recalled painful memories of what many consider the “Armenian Genocide”, which took place from 1915 to 1923.
Azerbaijan maintains that the campaign was necessary to restore order in a territory within its borders and that Armenians could have stayed in their homes.
“Erasing Nagorno-Karabakh is not peace,” Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, said in a statement on Thursday, saying the agreement had been reached “at gunpoint”.
“Normalising ethnic cleansing is not peace.”
