Armenia, Azerbaijan Sign Deal Aimed At Ending Decades Of Conflict

The organization told RFE/RL in a statement that it “remains committed to all efforts aimed at bringing lasting peace and stability to both countries” and stands ready to support their efforts.

Konul de Moor, South Caucasus consultant at the International Crisis Group, said the events at the White House could be seen as the beginning of peace, but some aspects remain unclear.

“In the coming days, we will have more information about that road or corridor. Is it still the corridor that Azerbaijan has been insisting on? What will the rules and regulations be? How will the borders be opened? Have these issues been resolved?” she said.

Another obstacle to an agreement is Azerbaijan’s demand for changes to the Armenian constitution, she added. According to reports, these changes could take until 2027.

“This requirement could also be one of the barriers to a peace treaty,” she said.

Promoting Peace and Prosperity

The economic agreements could set the stage for a reopening of a strategic transportation corridor across the South Caucasus that has been shut since the early 1990s.

The agreements give the US leasing rights to develop the corridor – which would run through southern Armenian territory – under the name Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).

The corridor will link Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave, which is separated from the rest of the country by an arm of Armenian territory 32 kilometers wide, and would eventually include a rail line, oil and gas lines, and fiber optic lines, allowing for the movement of goods and eventually people.

“We will turn the page of standoff, confrontation, and bloodshed and provide bright and safe future for our children. I’m very happy because today we are writing the great new history,” Aliyev said at the signing ceremony.

Added Pashinyan: “Today we have reached a significant milestone in Armenia and Azerbaijani relations by laying the foundation to write a better story than the one we had in the past.”

Post-War Fence-Mending

Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two major wars over a region known as Nagorno-Karabakh since they gained independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The two South Caucasus nations have taken significant steps to mend relations since the last major armed conflict in 2020 and the subsequent exodus of the ethnic Armenian population from the disputed region that officials in Yerevan now recognize as a sovereign Azerbaijani territory.

“I feel optimistic and have positive expectations. I’ve watched the news several times, got emotional, and cried,” one woman in Armenia told RFE/RL.

“I feel sorry for all the lives we lost. [Still] I feel positive.”

Border Issues

In another diplomatic breakthrough welcomed by the international community, Armenia and Azerbaijan conducted the first-ever delimitation and demarcation of a 13-kilometer section of their northern border in spring-summer 2024.

As a result, the Armenian military withdrew from four uninhabited villages that were part of Soviet Azerbaijan before the war broke out between the two countries in the early 1990s.

Both sides agreed to continue the border delimitation and demarcation process, but over the past year no progress has been made on other sections of the border – where Armenia claims Azerbaijan continues to occupy more than 200 square kilometers of its territory.

The Armenian opposition has denounced the controversial border demarcation and further diplomatic moves by Yerevan as “capitulation,” calling for Pashinyan’s resignation.

However, sustained opposition street protests and rallies that drew thousands in May and June 2024 eventually fizzled out, with the Armenian prime minister claiming that his government’s pursuit of sustainable peace with Azerbaijan still enjoys broad public support.

Transport Corridor

Under one of the clauses of the Moscow-brokered 2020 cease-fire agreement – which ended the bloody 44-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh – Armenia is to guarantee “the security of transport connections” between mainland Azerbaijan and its western exclave of Nakhichevan, ensuring “the unimpeded movement of citizens, vehicles, and cargo in both directions.”

Armenia, landlocked by Azerbaijan and Turkey, had insisted any transit route must be part of a broader regional unblocking process and must respect Armenia’s sovereignty, jurisdiction, and territorial integrity. Officials in Yerevan had rejected the idea and even the narrative of an extraterritorial corridor, calling it a veiled territorial claim by Azerbaijan.

In 2024, unable to reach a common solution, Azerbaijan and Armenia indicated that the connectivity issue would be handled separately from the broader peace agreement.

According to the 2020 cease-fire agreement, control over transport links between Armenia and Azerbaijan was to be exercised by Russia’s FSB Border Guard Service.

However, following a series of events – including the failure of Russian peacekeepers to protect the region’s ethnic Armenian population during Azerbaijan’s offensive in September 2023 and their subsequent withdrawal – Armenia has shifted its geopolitical orientation, distancing itself from Moscow and aligning more closely with the West.

Broers said renaming the Zangezur Corridor the Trump Route for International Peace & Prosperity also supersedes the Russian project to control the route.

“If there is one issue that Baku and Yerevan have agreed on over the years, it is that they do not want a Russian monopoly on managing the conflict between them. So this can be seen as a positive outcome,” he said.

But he noted that Armenian and Azerbaijani perspectives on how this route will function “still seem to be far apart and it’s too early to say how these differences are going to play out.”

Reaction From Regional Players

Turkey welcomed the agreement, saying a historic opportunity had been “seized for the peace and prosperity of the South Caucasus.”

This development is “an extremely important development in terms of ensuring regional peace and stability,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Russia and Iran have been less positive because the opening of a transit route through Armenia has the potential to link the oil- and gas-rich Caucasus and Central Asia to Europe, bypassing them.

Both Russia and Iran have expressed concern about a potential US presence in Armenia’s strategic Syunik region, bordering Iran.

Moscow has accused Washington of trying to hijack the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process and sideline regional powers.

“The Westerners aim to transfer the reconciliation process of Baku and Yerevan to their tracks,” Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said at a news briefing on July 24. “We also know where these tracks usually lead…. This can lead to an imbalance of the security system in the region.”

Iran has also voiced strong opposition to any deal that it believes could jeopardize its northern border with Armenia.

A top adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has warned countries “in or outside the region” to stop seeking a land corridor for Azerbaijan that would pass through an Armenian region bordering the Islamic republic.

Broers said there are two possible spoilers in the deal signed at the White House: Russia and Iran. Both are “embedded in the Caucasus and have numerous levers that they can use,” he said. “Russia has already criticized this deal, and we can expect more and sustained Russian hostility to the TRIPP plan.”