In a wide-ranging television interview on August 27, Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev asserted a key provision of the Trump peace plan for the Caucasus can be implemented quickly. The same cannot be said for the restoration of stable relations between Azerbaijan and Russia, he indicated.
Aliyev spoke at length about the provisional peace deal he signed with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and US President Donald Trump on August 8 in Washington, sounding broadly optimistic that the agreement signals the end of almost four decades of conflict and “opens absolutely new opportunities for the South Caucasus region and the broader regions of Central Asia and the Middle East.”
He told an interviewer from the Al Arabiya television channel he would sign a peace treaty, the text of which was reportedly finalized in the spring, as soon as Armenia amended its constitution to acknowledge Baku’s sovereignty over the long-contested Nagorno Karabakh territory. Azerbaijani forces reconquered Karabakh in 2023. Aliyev did not sound confident that Yerevan would adopt an amendment quickly, given the sensitivity of the issue among the general Armenian population and the low popularity ratings of Pashinyan’s government.
“I hope that nothing will interfere with the process,” Aliyev said. “But again, I don’t have 100 percent guarantees because I am not well aware of the internal politics of Armenia. We know that next summer they will hold parliamentary elections. We know that they are working on the draft of a new constitution. But if there is strong external interference, then yes, we may think that something could break what has been agreed.”
The Azerbaijani leader appeared to suggest that even in the absence of a signed and ratified peace agreement, other parts of the Trump peace deal could proceed, namely, the development of a transit corridor dubbed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity. With Trump’s name now attached to the project, “I’m sure that it will materialize very soon,” Aliyev said.
Aliyev said Baku has already created much of the road and rail infrastructure on its territory to link up to TRIPP, envisioned as a 42-kilometer road, rail and pipeline corridor traversing Armenian territory to connect Azerbaijan proper and its Nakhichevan exclave. Meanwhile, Turkey has commenced work on a railway to connect Nakhichevan to the Turkish hub at Kars.
