Azerbaijan and Armenia on the Verge of Breakthrough Decisions to End Long-Standing Conflict

On Friday, August 8, documents will be signed in Washington that will solidify the agreements and commitments of Azerbaijan and Armenia to the final cessation of the conflict between the two countries and the normalization of their relations.

Specifically, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, in the presence of U.S. President Donald Trump, will sign a Joint Declaration. According to White House-accredited journalist Alex Raufoglu, citing sources in Washington, the declaration will establish a "concrete path to peace" and the full normalization of relations.

In addition, the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia, Jeyhun Bayramov and Ararat Mirzoyan, will initial a peace agreement whose text the parties already agreed upon in March of this year. The sides will also sign a joint letter to the OSCE to withdraw from the Minsk Group, which was created in 1992 to settle the conflict between the two countries. The Minsk Group has been largely inactive since the 44-day war in 2020, which resulted in Azerbaijan regaining control of its territories around the former Nagorno-Karabakh region.

A central element of the Washington meeting will be the signing of a new commercial and infrastructure project agreement between Armenia and the United States called the "Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity" (TRIPP). TRIPP will create a transit route through southern Armenia, providing Azerbaijan with unimpeded access to its exclave of Nakhchivan, which Baku calls the Zangezur corridor.

According to sources in Washington, this route will preserve Armenia's "sovereignty, territorial integrity, and jurisdiction." TRIPP is not a military or defense initiative. Officials have made it clear that the U.S. is not providing "hard security guarantees" or deploying troops on this route. U.S. involvement will be purely commercial, with the U.S. taking responsibility for ensuring the "safe operation of the route for all parties" through agreements with "top-class operators."

Additionally, Baku and Washington plan to sign a "Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of the United States of America on the establishment of a Strategic Working Group to develop a charter on a strategic partnership between Azerbaijan and the U.S."

Trump's meetings with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are scheduled to begin after 2:00 p.m. Washington time.