(AFP) – US President Donald Trump will host the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan on Friday, with the two South Caucasus rivals expected to sign a deal advancing peace efforts after decades of conflict. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s longtime President Ilham Aliyev will attend a “Historic Peace Summit” at the White House, Trump announced on his Truth Social platform. He did not elaborate on the deal’s details, but it would join a growing list of US-brokered initiatives for which the president believes he should win a Nobel Peace Prize. “Many Leaders have tried to end the War, with no success, until now, thanks to ‘TRUMP,'” he boasted.
Christian-majority Armenia and Muslim-majority Azerbaijan have feuded for decades over their border and the status of ethnic enclaves within each other’s territories. The former Soviet republics went to war twice over the disputed Karabakh region, which Azerbaijan recaptured from Armenian forces in a lightning 2023 offensive, sparking the exodus of more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians.
The two countries agreed on the text of a comprehensive peace deal in March, but Azerbaijan has since outlined a host of demands — including amendments to Armenia’s constitution to drop territorial claims for Karabakh — before signing the document. Pashinyan has announced plans for a constitutional referendum in 2027, but the issue remains deeply divisive among Armenians.
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly, in a briefing with reporters on Friday, said the two countries would sign a “joint declaration” establishing a transit corridor between Azerbaijan and its exclave of Nakhchivan, a longstanding demand of Baku. The United States will have development rights for the corridor, dubbed the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP), she said. The two nations will also sign a letter officially requesting the dissolving of the Minsk Group, a now-defunct mediation body under the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Kelly added. The White House did not elaborate on how Friday’s agreement aligns with the broader comprehensive deal.
Both countries are also expected to sign bilateral economic deals with the United States. “Armenia walks out of this with an enormous strategic commercial partner, probably the most enormous and strategic in the history of the world: the United States of America,” a White House official said. “The losers here are China, Russia, and Iran,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Trump has repeatedly praised his own diplomatic efforts to help halt deadly conflicts, notably between Cambodia and Thailand, and arch-foes India and Pakistan. On Thursday, Cambodia’s prime minister announced he had nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize. Months of efforts have, however, yet to solve the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and the hunger plaguing Gaza during Israel’s offensive. A deal to normalize ties between Armenia and Azerbaijan would be a major breakthrough in a region where Russia, the European Union, the United States, and Turkey all jostle for influence.
– Michael Mathes
© 2024 AFP
