Armenia and Azerbaijan to ink peace deal at White Home
WASHINGTON — President Trump will host the leaders of longtime adversaries Armenia and Azerbaijan on the White Home on Friday to signal a peace accord constructed round a brand new railway route within the area.
The US-developed transit initiative — dubbed the “Trump Route for Worldwide Peace and Prosperity” — will transect the sparsely populated south of Armenia, the world’s oldest Christian nation, whereas linking Azerbaijan’s capital Baku on the Caspian Sea to its Nakhchivan exclave touching Turkey.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev will meet Trump individually earlier than a day signing ceremony.
A Trump administration official stated approval of the hall offers Armenia an “monumental strategic industrial accomplice” within the US whereas fingers Azerbaijan a long-sought connection between the nation’s two geographic parts.
The passageway might ultimately emerge as a significant route for transportation of fossil fuels from energy-rich Azerbaijan and Central Asia.
Trump’s deal inserts the US in a management place traditionally occupied by Russia, which offered peacekeeping troops to the previous Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which Aliyev reconquered for Azerbaijan in 2023, ending 32 years of de facto independence.
It’s unclear if Nagorno-Karabakh residents shall be allowed to return to their mountainous homeland as a part of the deal.
Trump officers described the pact as the beginning of an extended course of that may resolve particulars within the battle between the previous Soviet states — with talks starting subsequent week on establishing the route named for Trump, which US officers stated was performed at Armenia’s urging.
“This isn’t charity. It is a extremely investable entity,” a Trump administration official informed reporters.
“I obtained calls from 9 totally different operators and was happy to see three totally different American operators,” the official stated.
“We’re going to seek out essentially the most first-class working system that we will, not as a result of it brings peace, though that’s a improbable factor, but it surely’s additionally going to carry industrial prosperity, which is able to guarantee peace past simply at present’s signing ceremony.”
US officers unveiled the breakthrough between Yerevan and Baku because the president’s aides proceed to argue he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, which shall be awarded Oct. 10 — in mild of his prior function brokering peace between India and Pakistan, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cambodia and Thailand, in addition to ending this yr’s Israeli-Iran battle with a decisive US bombing raid on Tehran’s nuclear amenities.
Administration officers additionally offered the South Caucasus deal as a strategic win for Washington whereas Moscow stays mired in battle with Ukraine and Tehran reels from latest Israeli and US airstrikes.
“For those who have a look at the move from the Caucasus area into Europe, every little thing both goes via Russia or via Iran,” an official stated. “For those who have been simply it objectively, you’d say, ‘Why is it this fashion?’ And the reply could be, ‘Nicely, as a result of politics bought in the way in which.’
“What President Trump has performed is he’s taken the politics out of the image and made widespread sense prevail. What it will do for American companies, and admittedly, for power assets throughout Europe shall be enormously highly effective. The losers listed here are China, Russia and Iran. The winners listed here are the West.”
The Trump aide added: “Whenever you have a look at what sign this sends, it sends that the one superpower on the earth is performing just like the one superpower on the earth.”
