Will Aliyev and Pashinyan meet in Washington?

A meeting between the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia is planned for this coming Friday, August 8th, in Washington, D.C., with U.S. President Donald Trump mediating. This was reported by Washington-based journalist Alex Raufoglu, who is accredited with the White House and the U.S. State Department, citing his sources.

"Numerous sources confirm to me that Armenia and Azerbaijan are prepared to announce their intention to achieve peace later this week in Washington. According to the sources, Trump is expected to host Nikol Pashinyan and Ilham Aliyev at the White House on Friday," Raufoglu wrote on the social network X. The link is provided:

https://x.com/ralakbar/status/1952217011431321670.

Baku and Yerevan have not yet commented on this report.

Previously, Aliyev and Pashinyan met without mediators on July 10th in Abu Dhabi. Following that meeting, both sides stated that "bilateral negotiations are the most effective format for resolving all issues related to the normalization process, and it was decided to continue such a result-oriented dialogue on this basis."

Earlier in March, the parties announced that they had agreed on the text of a peace treaty.

Pro-government experts in Baku believe that the peace treaty could be initialed before the end of this year. According to Baku, the final signing of the treaty should take place after Armenia's constitution removes any mention of "Nagorno-Karabakh" and the parties jointly appeal to the OSCE to dissolve the Minsk Group. The Minsk Group was created in 1992 to resolve the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict and has de facto ceased its activities since the 44-day war in 2020.