The U.S. and Europe tried unsuccessfully for 35 years to finish the battle between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Moscow additionally failed, sending “peacekeepers” after Azerbaijan’s assaults on Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020; these forces idly watched when Azerbaijan took your entire area and drove out 110,000 ethnic Armenians in 2023.
President Biden’s measured response to the exodus continued the stale “balanced” regional coverage that might not overcome many years of hostility. However the dynamic modified beneath President Trump.
Shortly after taking workplace for the second time, Trump’s administration determined to quietly however immediately have interaction the Armenian prime minister and the Azerbaijani president to see if a deal could possibly be finished within the South Caucasus — a transfer prompted partly by the highly effective American evangelical group that supported Armenia because the world’s first Christian nation. At a summit on the White Home final August, each events dedicated to the inviolability of worldwide borders, the inadmissibility of using power and the opening of regional transportation hyperlinks.
The Trump administration’s admirably swift progress in a famously troublesome a part of the world could be credited to favorable circumstances mixed with modern approaches not tried by earlier administrations. When Trump assumed workplace in January 2025, Armenia and Azerbaijan had been each searching for to restrain Russian affect within the area. Each noticed advantages to working with one another to resolve points, which was itself a brand new and constructive step. Whereas the work of the Biden administration and European diplomacy set a basis, their adherence to conventional approaches was not sufficient to beat the facility differential between the 2 international locations and a peace deal was elusive.
The Trump administration’s frequent high-level engagement with the Armenian prime minister, beginning with a White Home assembly with Vice President JD Vance lower than three weeks after the inauguration, have bolstered Armenia’s place within the talks and incentivized the Azerbaijani president’s extra constructive method.
The ingredient that set the Trump administration’s diplomacy aside was its proposal to develop a U.S.-Armenia venture known as the Trump Route for Worldwide Peace and Prosperity, an east-west link between Central Asia and Western Europe that may profit each nation alongside its path by creating or restoring rail, fiber optic and fuel pipeline connections.
Direct U.S. involvement within the proposal — branded with Trump’s identify — offered every nation sufficient assurance to succeed in settlement on a difficulty that had lengthy been a degree of competition. Due to U.S. commitments, Armenia expects to manage the infrastructure and Azerbaijan expects to retain entry.
As soon as development is underway the route will present Armenia with a de facto safety assure in its most weak area, rising regional stability and guaranteeing sovereignty, territorial integrity and jurisdiction — one thing no different exterior negotiator has managed to attain.
Whereas every battle is exclusive, some classes from Trump’s success within the Caucasus may apply elsewhere. Trump’s public help for the Armenian chief and on-the-ground presence decreased the facility imbalance and incentivized Azerbaijan to come back to the desk.
In Ukraine, a bigger and higher armed autocrat additionally threatens a smaller, weaker democracy. Trump-branded initiatives there may assist deter Russian assaults on key infrastructure; the Trump-initiated U.S.-Ukraine Reconstruction Funding Fund could possibly be a mechanism to develop these joint ventures. Refocusing diplomatic consideration from Moscow to Kyiv may higher stability the facility differential and present Russian chief Vladimir Putin that he stands to lose by obstructing peace.
Optimistic momentum in Armenia continues. Late final month, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited the Armenian capital to maintain the commitments shifting ahead. Sunday’s parliamentary elections affirmed the Armenian public’s help of U.S. engagement and its authorities’s method. It additionally demonstrated that Armenia, like different former Soviet states earlier than it, have bored with poisonous Russian “partnership.”
Extra must be finished to safe lasting stability, together with delimitation of the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, signing and ratification of the peace settlement, Turkish motion to open its border with Armenia, Azerbaijani launch of Armenian political prisoners and the precise development of the promised route.
Regardless of the various different international challenges requiring the eye of the Trump administration, together with the U.S.-Israeli-led battle with neighboring Iran, we could now be seeing the perfect alternative in many years for lasting peace within the South Caucasus. Sustained focus and adherence to the ideas of final summer season’s White Home summit provide a promising path ahead that needs to be replicated elsewhere.
Kristina A. Kvien, a profession diplomat who was the U.S. ambassador to Armenia from 2023 to 2026, is the president and chief government of the Pacific Council on Worldwide Coverage.
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Concepts expressed within the piece
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The article argues that, after 35 years of failed efforts by america, Europe and Russia to finish the Armenia-Azerbaijan battle, the dynamic shifted solely beneath President Trump’s second time period, notably following Moscow’s ineffective “peacekeeping” function throughout the 2020 battle and the 2023 exodus of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians.
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It contends that President Biden’s extra conventional and “balanced” regional coverage, although contributing some groundwork, couldn’t overcome deep hostility and the facility imbalance between Azerbaijan and Armenia, whereas the Trump administration’s choice to interact each leaders rapidly and immediately produced tangible outcomes.
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The piece maintains that high-level, early and frequent engagement by Trump officers — together with conferences on the White Home inside weeks of the inauguration — strengthened Armenia’s bargaining place and inspired a extra constructive stance from Azerbaijan, creating circumstances for a breakthrough.
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It highlights the August White Home summit, the place the Armenian prime minister and the Azerbaijani president dedicated to the inviolability of borders, the inadmissibility of power and the opening of transportation hyperlinks, as a historic turning level that introduced the events nearer to a sustainable peace than any earlier initiative, aligning with descriptions of that declaration in exterior analyses.[1][2][3]
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The article credit the Trump administration’s “modern” method, particularly the proposal for a U.S.–Armenia infrastructure initiative branded because the Trump Route for Worldwide Peace and Prosperity — a brand new east-west rail, fiber-optic and fuel hall — arguing that direct U.S. involvement, and Trump’s private imprimatur, gave each side the boldness wanted to shut long-standing gaps.[1][2]
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It emphasizes that, beneath the deal, Armenia is anticipated to manage the hall’s infrastructure whereas Azerbaijan retains assured entry, and it presents this association as a de facto safety assure for Armenia’s most weak area, enhancing its sovereignty, territorial integrity and jurisdiction in methods different exterior mediators by no means achieved.[1][2]
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The column means that the South Caucasus expertise affords a template for different conflicts, asserting that Trump-branded initiatives and a U.S.-led reconstruction funding fund in Ukraine may assist deter Russian assaults on key infrastructure and rebalance energy in favor of Kyiv, a lot as U.S. backing rebalanced energy for Yerevan.
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It interprets persevering with U.S. engagement — together with a go to to Armenia by the secretary of State and up to date Armenian elections endorsing the federal government’s pro-Western course — as proof that Trump’s coverage has public legitimacy in Armenia and has accelerated the nation’s drift away from reliance on Russia.
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Lastly, the article concludes that, though key steps stay — corresponding to border delimitation, a signed and ratified peace treaty, Turkish-Armenian border opening, the discharge of Armenian political prisoners and precise development of the route — this second represents the perfect alternative in many years for lasting peace within the South Caucasus if the Trump administration sustains focus and replicates these ideas elsewhere.
Totally different views on the subject
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In distinction to claims that the White Home summit produced a definitive peace, some analysts emphasize that the August 8 joint declaration is a political framework slightly than a legally binding peace treaty, noting that it doesn’t itself finish the 37-year battle over Nagorno-Karabakh however as a substitute sketches objectives corresponding to border delimitation, renunciation of power and the opening of transport hyperlinks that also require arduous follow-through.[2][3]
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Critics level out that Azerbaijan’s habits for the reason that declaration — together with what human rights advocates describe as sham trials of Armenian detainees and calls for that Armenia change its structure as a precondition for signing a peace settlement — demonstrates that Baku continues to wield its navy and political benefit to exert stress on Yerevan, calling into query the notion that the facility imbalance has been absolutely addressed.[3]
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From this attitude, the present association is seen as fragile exactly as a result of it sidesteps unresolved justice points: observers stress the necessity for readability on the destiny of lacking individuals, the return or truthful therapy of prisoners of battle and accountability for abuses towards Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, arguing that with out such measures the deal dangers cementing an unequal establishment slightly than delivering a sturdy, rights-based peace.[1][2][3]
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Some peacebuilding organizations subsequently describe the August framework not as a closing settlement however as a “fragile framework” that requires sustained worldwide engagement, warning that setbacks in border demarcation, safety ensures or political will in both capital may rapidly undermine the progress made in Washington.[3]
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As well as, a number of coverage consultants argue that focusing too narrowly on a single U.S.-branded hall is inadequate to lock in long-term stability; they as a substitute advocate a broader regional financial compact amongst Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey, backed by america, the European Union and Gulf companions, and name for a South Caucasus stability fund to coordinate a number of initiatives in order that peace dividends are extensively shared and never tied to 1 route.[1]
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Regional specialists additionally word that key parts of a complete peace — together with a finalized and signed peace treaty, detailed border delimitation and strong confidence-building measures — stay incomplete, main them to warning towards portraying the Trump initiative as a completed success slightly than a step in an extended, unsure course of.[1][3]
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Battle trackers add that the danger of renewed confrontation has not disappeared: excellent disputes over the Armenia-Azerbaijan border and unresolved questions in regards to the future or potential return of Armenians displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh are cited as potential flashpoints that might re-ignite tensions regardless of the Washington declaration.[2][3]
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Lastly, some observers emphasize continuity throughout administrations, noting that years of diplomacy by earlier U.S. governments, European establishments and the OSCE Minsk Group, mixed with battlefield outcomes in 2020 and battle fatigue in each societies, steadily moved the events towards compromise; on this studying, the 2025 breakthrough is best understood because the end result of a protracted course of slightly than the singular achievement of 1 administration.[1][2]
