Aug. 8 (UPI) — The leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia will be at the White House Friday with President Donald Trump to sign a peace agreement to end a decades-long conflict.
Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and Armenia Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will visit for a “Historic Peace Summit,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday night.
The two are committing to a peace deal that would end a conflict that has been in place since 1988.
They will also sign agreements that will expand their ties with the United States. This was made possible because the United States helped resolve a dispute over the development of a shared transit corridor, according to Politico.
The peace agreement will be the first ever between the two former Soviet countries.
Armenia plans to announce U.S. development rights on the 27-mile transit corridor that the White House is calling the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity,” which will ease access to the West, two sources told CBS News. The White House is calling the meeting the “TRIPP Summit.”
“I look forward to hosting the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, and the prime minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, at the White House tomorrow for a historic peace summit,” Trump posted Thursday on Truth Social. “The United States will also sign bilateral agreements with both countries to pursue economic opportunities together, so we can fully unlock the potential of the South Caucasus Region.”
The dispute is over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which was the home of mostly ethnic Armenians until 2023. The seven surrounding districts have mostly Azerbaijanis. Azerbaijan expelled Armenians in 2023, and Armenia expelled Azerbaijanis in the 1990s.
The Republic of Artsakh claimed control of the region from 1991 to 2023, but it was never recognized internationally, and Azerbaijan retook control of it.
The transit corridor includes a commitment to developing the mountainous stretch of Armenian territory between Azerbaijan and a Nakhichevan exclave known as the Zangezur Corridor, said three officials, who were granted anonymity by Politico.
Armenia has agreed to give the United States exclusive special development rights on the Zangezur Corridor land for 99 years. The United States would sublease the land to a group that will develop rail, oil, gas and fiber optic lines and possibly electricity transmission on the corridor.
The United States will waive a section of the Freedom Support Act of 1992, which bans direct aid to Azerbaijan’s government because of its issue with Armenia.
The peace agreement is likely to upset Armenian-Americans because it doesn’t address the displacement of people from Nagorno-Karabakh or Armenian prisoners of war.
“Real peace must be predicated on justice and accountability for Azerbaijan’s ongoing human rights violations — these issues shouldn’t be left on the back burner,” Alex Galitsky, program director at the Armenian National Committee of America advocacy group, told Politico. “A deal that rewards Azerbaijan’s aggression, undermines Armenia’s sovereignty, and denies justice to Artsakh’s Armenians will only make it harder to resolve these critical human rights issues down the line.”