Azerbaijan and Armenia signed an average peace agreement in the United States on Friday, during a meeting with US President Donald Trump, that would strengthen bilateral economic relations after decades of conflict.
The deal between the competitors of the South Caucasus – assuming that it carries – will be an important achievement for the Trump administration, which is certainly peeling Moscow, which sees the region within its field of influence.
“It has been a long time – 35 years – they fought and now friends, and they will be friends for a long time,” Trump said at a signing ceremony at the White House, where he was surrounded by Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nicole Pashinian.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been in contradiction since the late 1980s when Nagorno Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani region by the Armenian Armenian, exploded from Azerbaijan with the support of Armenia. Azerbaijan regained full control of the region in 2023, prompting almost all ethnic Armenians in the region to flee to Armenia.
Trump said that the two countries have committed to stopping the fighting, opening diplomatic relations and respecting the regional safety of each other.
The agreement includes the exclusive American development rights of a strategic transit pass through the region that the White House said facilitates greater exports of energy and other resources.
Trump said the United States has signed separate deals with every country to expand energy, trade and technology, including artificial intelligence.
He said that the restrictions were also raised on the defense cooperation between Azerbaijan and the United States.
Leaders undertake Trump’s nomination for peace
Both leaders praised Trump for helping to end the conflict and said they sprayed him for the Nobel Peace Prize. “So, if not President Trump, deserves the Nobel Peace Prize?” Alia said.
Trump tried to present himself as a world peacemaker in the first months of his second term. The White House attributes it to a mediation for a ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand and seals peace deals between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan and India.
However, he was unable to end Russia’s war in Ukraine or Israel’s struggle with Hamas in Gaza.
US officials said the agreement was removed during frequent visits to the region and will provide a basis for work for full normalization between countries.
Senior administration officials told reporters that the agreement was the first end of many frozen conflicts on the vicinity of Russia since the end of the Cold War and said it would send a strong signal to the entire region.
It can convert the peace agreement to the South Caucasus, which is an energy -producing area in Russia, Europe, Turkey and Iran that intersect with oil and gas pipelines, but it loves closed borders and long ethnic conflicts.
Administration officials told Reuters this week that Armenia plans to grant exclusive private development rights to the United States for a long time on the transportation corridor. One official said that the so -called Trump Road for Peace and Development has sparked attention from nine companies, including three American companies.
Dafni Panieottos, with Washington’s rights group now, said it has urged the Trump administration to use the meeting with Aliyev to demand the release of about 375 political prisoners in the country.
Azerbaijan, an oil -producing country that hosted the United Climate Summit last November, rejected the western criticism of the human rights registry, describing it as unacceptable intervention.
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