The peace agreement signed at the White House between Armenia and Azerbaijan is the culmination of a long-negotiated process to end the three-decade conflict between the two neighbouring countries.
US involvement in the Azeri-Armenian peace process started with the previous administration of former president Joe Biden when Russia relinquished its support for Armenia as part of the American strategy to “isolate” Russia. However, it was current President Donald Trump who took the credit by signing the ceremony’s photographs.
After the ceremony, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev called for Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on bringing peace to the Caucasus. This was similar to Pakistan’s action following a ceasefire after a few days of cross-border war with India when Trump claimed he had brokered the deal.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan did not echo the Peace Prize call made by Aliyev, however, and India did not share the enthusiasm of Pakistan in calling for the nomination of Trump for a Nobel Prize.
Perhaps this was because Azerbaijan walked away with a more substantial win than Armenia in the deal. It reinforced its sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed region populated by Armenians. The region broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia in the 1980s.
In 2023, with Russia losing its influence in the region, Azerbaijan used its superior military power to take back full control of the region by force, prompting almost all of the territory’s 120,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
A Western diplomat drew an analogy between Nagorno-Karabakh and the Gaza Strip, telling Al-Ahram Weekly that the Israelis are trying to expel the Palestinians by military force from Gaza in a similar way to what Azerbaijan did to the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.
He mentioned that those supporting Baku are almost the same as those supporting Israel. He referred to media reports during the 12-day Israeli war on Iran that said that Azerbaijan had been a launch pad for some Israeli drone attacks on Iran.
Iran stands out as having gained the least from the deal, but not because of the peace deal alone. Iran’s land access to Europe and other countries to the north of the Caspian Sea goes through its northern border with Georgia.
It is the American involvement in the new deal that gives it a foothold on Iran’s northern border, and the US activity in the area may intimidate Russia through its presence in what was once considered the “soft belly” of the former Soviet Union.
Though Russia still has a military base in Armenia, it is losing its clout there much as it has in Syria after the fall of the Al-Assad regime. The Armenian prime minister is attempting to distance his country from Russia and to foster new relations with the West.
The most significant item of the deal is an agreement to establish a “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” under which a US consortium will take control of a 32 km transit corridor connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave inside Armenia and bordering Iran.
According to a White House statement, the new transport corridor will “enable unhindered connectivity between the two countries (Armenia and Azerbaijan), while respecting the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and people of Armenia.”
The route is expected to include roads, railways, oil and gas pipelines, and fibre-optic lines. The suggested consortium is yet to be formed, and even if it includes other financiers, it will be mainly American.
There are suggestions that the transit corridor could extend north-west to the border with Turkey. That would integrate Armenia into the Middle Corridor Project, an economic trade route between Europe and China that bypasses Russia and Iran. Armenian leaders have long seen economic benefits in this project for their landlocked country.
Though the US commercial involvement might benefit Chinese President Xi Jinping’s flagship “Belt and Road” Initiative, China might also be wary of American involvement in that segment of its trade project.
In a statement after the signing ceremony in the White House, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said that “establishing communication networks will serve the security and economic development of the nations of the region when it is done within the framework of mutual interests, respecting the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of the countries of the region and without foreign interference” – a reference to the American consortium that will lead the transit corridor.
Former Iranian ambassador to Baku and Deputy Presidential Spokesman Abbas Mousavi described Trump’s involvement in relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia as “offensive and dangerous.”
However, many analysts conclude that there is little that any losing party can do to block the deal and overcome US influence in Armenia and Azerbaijan. Anything Trump gets involved in typically has to do with money, and the transit corridor component of the deal is a big win for him.
Some even suggest that with American involvement investment could pour into the project, especially from the wealthy Gulf countries that already have good relations with Azerbaijan.
In counting the winners and losers of this peace agreement, Trump comes out on top, followed by Aliyev and Pashinyan. To a lesser extent, Turkey and other allies of Azerbaijan including Israel are also winners.
The main losers are Iran and Russia and to a lesser degree China. This is in addition to those Armenians who lost their homeland in Nagorno-Karabakh and those who oppose the West-leaning government in Yerevan.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 14 August, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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