President Donald Trump will host a signing ceremony on the White Home on Aug. 8 for a peace settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
In a Reality Social post on Aug. 7, Trump wrote that he’d be internet hosting the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan for a “Historic Peace Summit” on the White Home on Friday.
“These two Nations have been at Warfare for a few years, ensuing within the deaths of hundreds of individuals. Many Leaders have tried to finish the Warfare, with no success, till now,” Trump mentioned, including that his administration has been “engaged with either side for fairly a while.”
Trump may also signal bilateral agreements with Armenia and Azerbaijan “to pursue Financial alternatives collectively, so we will absolutely unlock the potential of the South Caucasus Area.”
The 2 nations have engaged in cross-border conflicts for the reason that late Eighties. On the time, the Azerbaijani area of Nagorno-Karabakh, which had a largely ethnic-Armenian inhabitants, broke away from Azerbaijan with Armenia’s assist.
Since successful independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars, with Azerbaijan reclaiming giant parts of territory in 2020. In 2023, its forces captured the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh area.
A peace settlement between the 2 nations may remodel the South Caucasus, an energy-producing area that neighbors Europe, Turkey, Iran, and Russia. The South Caucasus is intersected by gasoline and oil pipelines however beset by longstanding ethnic conflicts and closed borders.
“I’m very pleased with these brave Leaders for doing the fitting factor for the Nice Individuals of Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Trump mentioned on Reality Social. “Will probably be a Historic Day for Armenia, Azerbaijan, the USA, and THE WORLD.”
In March, Trump’s particular envoy Steve Witkoff visited the Armenian-Azerbaijan area to work in direction of negotiating a peace settlement between the 2 neighbors.
The announcement of Friday’s peace signing ceremony follows Trump’s latest diplomatic efforts that culminated in peace discuss breakthroughs between India and Pakistan, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Cambodia and Thailand.
Nonetheless, a extremely anticipated cease-fire between Moscow and Kyiv to finish a greater than three-year-long struggle that started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has been extra elusive.
Final week, Trump urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to finish his struggle in Ukraine inside “10 or 12 days from immediately” or face new financial sanctions and punitive measures.
The Kremlin said on Thursday that it could meet with the U.S. president “within the coming days.”
Ryan Morgan, Victoria Friedman, Chris Summers, and Reuters contributed to this report.
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