(AFP) – US Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday visited Azerbaijan, arriving from Armenia as part of a regional trip aimed at consolidating a US-brokered peace process between the Caucasus neighbours. The visit follows US President Donald Trump’s mediation last year of a peace agreement between the historical rivals Baku and Yerevan, which have fought two wars over the Karabakh region.
Vance sparked controversy by deleting a post from the @VP account on X that said he and his wife had laid a wreath “at the Armenian Genocide memorial to honour the victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide.” His office said the post was published in error by staff not part of the delegation. Armenia has long sought international recognition of the World War I-era killings of some 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide. Turkey rejects the label, estimates Armenian deaths at 300,000 to 500,000, and claims that as many Turks died in civil strife after many Armenians sided with invading Russian forces. Last year, in his message marking the tragedy’s anniversary, Trump avoided describing the massacres as genocide — reversing the stance taken by his predecessor Joe Biden.
In Baku, Vance met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev before the two signed a strategic partnership agreement between the United States and Azerbaijan. Vance said the agreement “will formalise that partnership and make it very clear that the United States–Azerbaijan relationship is one that will stick.” The United States will “ship some new boats to Azerbaijan to help you with territorial waters protection,” he told Aliyev as they made statements to the press. Aliyev said relations between the two countries “are entering a new phase”, including in defence cooperation, “through equipment sales.” “We will continue cooperation in the field of security and will work together on counterterrorism operations.”
On Monday, Vance held talks with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Yerevan. The visit is expected to advance a flagship transport communications project integrating the two countries into a new east-west trade route. Azerbaijan seized Karabakh in a 2023 lightning offensive, ending three decades of rule by Armenian separatists. At a White House summit in August 2025, Trump brokered an agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan that saw the two countries commit to renouncing claims on each other’s territory and refrain from using force.
Before the meeting with Aliyev, Vance said the issue of Armenian separatist leaders imprisoned in Azerbaijan was “certainly going to come up” in talks with Azerbaijani leaders. Last week, a military court in Baku handed lengthy sentences, including life jail terms, to Armenian separatist leaders in a war crimes trial. More than 20 Armenian human rights groups sent an open letter urging Vance to help secure the release of Armenian detainees in Azerbaijani jails. Karabakh refugees held a rally in Yerevan with the same demand.
The US State Department said the visit would “advance President Donald Trump’s peace efforts and promote the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).” The TRIPP is a proposed road-and-rail corridor designed to link Azerbaijan with its Nakhchivan exclave, cut off from the mainland by Armenian territory, while integrating the region into a wider east-west trade route connecting Central Asia and the Caspian basin to Europe. Washington has presented the project as a confidence-building measure following decades of conflict between the two countries. Aliyev said the TRIPP “will make another contribution to peace, development and cooperation in the region.” Azerbaijan sees the opening of regional communications as the main precondition for signing a comprehensive peace treaty with its rival.
– Emil GULIYEV
© 2024 AFP
