Trump proposes a "Peace Meeting" with Armenia and Azerbaijan
In a significant development in the long-standing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the two nations signed an initial peace agreement at a historic summit held at the White House on August 11, 2025. The agreement, known as the Agreement on Establishment of Peace and Inter-State Relations, marks a crucial step towards normalizing relations and resolving territorial disputes.
The peace summit, announced by former US President Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform, brought together Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev and Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. The agreement, while an important milestone, is not a comprehensive peace treaty and leaves some contentious issues unresolved.
Key aspects of the current peace process include:
- The August 8, 2025, White House declaration recognizes bilateral territorial integrity based on Soviet-era borders, withdraws disputes from international legal bodies, and prohibits third-party military presence on shared borders, including Russian peacekeepers and EU monitors.
- The parties are still negotiating constitutional amendments. Armenia is expected to remove references to Nagorno-Karabakh in its constitution, while Azerbaijan demands the removal of international monitoring missions from the border areas.
- The agreement does not address the governance of Nagorno-Karabakh itself or the right of return for displaced ethnic Armenians, leaving these issues unresolved.
- A strategic transit corridor, the so-called Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), was agreed upon to connect Azerbaijan proper and its exclave, Nakhchivan, and facilitate regional trade routes bypassing Russia and Iran. The US will have exclusive development rights over this corridor for 99 years, a major geopolitical development aiming to reduce Russian, Iranian, and Chinese influence in the South Caucasus.
- While the US and Western leaders praised the agreement, Russia expressed deep reservations, viewing US mediation and involvement as undermining its regional influence and warning against outside interference.
The peace process depends heavily on finalizing and signing a binding treaty that solidifies these agreements, which has yet to occur. Many obstacles remain, including Azerbaijan’s demands and the sensitive status of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The peace agreement is an important but incomplete step toward resolving the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. The framework for peace has been set at the White House summit under Trump’s mediation, but final legal ratification and full implementation of terms remain outstanding as of August 2025.
More than 100,000 ethnic Armenians have fled the conflict region, and Armenia has been in a severe political crisis since losing the Nagorno-Karabakh region to an attack by Azerbaijan in 2023. Azerbaijan, under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev, is authoritarian and heavily armed, maintaining military pressure on Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.
This peace summit is a significant event in the ongoing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and its outcome will have far-reaching implications for the region and beyond.
- The peace agreement signed at the White House in 2025, known as the 'Agreement on Establishment of Peace and Inter-State Relations,' is a crucial development in 'politics' and 'general-news,' marking a step towards resolving the long-standing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
- The subsequent peace process, ongoing as of August 2025, involves negotiations on constitutional amendments, territorial integrity, the future of Nagorno-Karabakh, and 'war-and-conflicts'-related matters, including third-party military presence, governance of Nagorno-Karabakh, and the right of return for displaced ethnic Armenians.
