Trump route Armenia Azerbaijan

Washington (dpa) — US President Donald Trump plans to host a “peace summit” between long-time adversaries Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House on Friday.

Trump announced the meeting on his Truth Social platform on Thursday, saying Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan would attend.

Senior US government officials said the two leaders would sign a joint declaration on building a trade route through southern Armenia, to be named the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP).

The route would give Azerbaijan unimpeded access to its autonomous exclave of Nakhchivan. The exclave is cut off from the heartland of Azerbaijan – it is surrounded by Armenia, Iran and Turkey.

Although the new trade route runs through Armenia, the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are to be preserved, the officials said, adding that negotiations would begin next week.

The proposed route, which Washington envisions as part of a wider peace treaty, is intended to boost trade, transit and energy transport in the South Caucasus.

It revives the long-debated idea of the so-called Zangezur Corridor, which has been a source of geopolitical tension for years, cutting across Armenian territory and potentially disrupting Iran’s direct land link to Armenia.

US officials said safeguards would be in place to ensure conflict-free use of the road.

For Russia, long seen as Armenia’s protector but now absorbed in its war in Ukraine, analysts describe Trump’s initiative as a strategic defeat.

Kremlin-linked political scientist Sergei Markov called it “a major victory for the US and personally for Trump,” and a loss for both Russia and Iran. France and the European Union, he said, would also have preferred to broker such a deal themselves.

Tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan remain high. The Christian-majority Armenia and Muslim-majority Azerbaijan have fought for decades over Nagorno-Karabakh, a majority-Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan.

Armenia occupied large parts of its neighbour in the 1990s, but Azerbaijan, buoyed by oil wealth, regained territory in 2020 and recaptured Nagorno-Karabakh in a lightning 2023 offensive. The defeat plunged Armenia into political crisis, with more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians fleeing to Armenia and Baku continuing to exert military pressure.

Trump said the US would also sign bilateral agreements with both countries to expand economic opportunities and “fully unlock the potential of the South Caucasus Region,” adding that many leaders had tried and failed to end the conflict “until now, thanks to TRUMP.”