Washington — President Trump plans to announce a pact for peace between two former Soviet republics, Azerbaijan and Armenia, at the White House on Friday, sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.
Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, and Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, will attend the events in the Oval Office and State Dining Room, the sources said. The agreement, the first ever inked between the two heads of state, comes as U.S. officials seek to deepen ties with the two countries, with energy production and transit as key attractions.
Armenia intends to announce U.S. development rights on a 43-kilometer transit corridor to be called the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity,” which will help provide access to the West, two of the sources said.
U.S. officials have been working for months on an Armenia-Azerbaijan deal.
Tensions between the two countries have simmered for decades, erupting into outright conflict most recently in 2023, when Azerbaijan launched an offensive in a disputed region that caused tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians to flee. A ceasefire in September 2023 averted a wider war, and the countries concluded talks over a peace treaty in March. But talks aimed at cementing the deal have stalled in the months since, with negotiations in Abu Dhabi in July failing to lead to a breakthrough.
Special envoy Steve Witkoff traveled to Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, in March. Aryeh Lightstone, former CEO of the Abraham Accords Peace Institute, has made multiple trips to the region as part of peace deal talks. The Trump administration has said an Azerbaijan peace deal with its neighbor is necessary before it can join the Abraham Accords, as part of a plan to expand that agreement beyond the Arab countries that signed up to it in 2020 when they recognized Israel.
Entry into the accords isn’t expected on Friday, sources said. Both Witkoff and Lightstone are expected to be at Friday’s summit.
Azerbaijan also borders Russia, and has the potential to send oil and gas into Ukraine without going through Russia. The peace pact will open routes for goods to travel to the West without crossing Russia — or Iran, sources said.
Mr. Trump has privately expressed interest in a Nobel Peace Prize for his role in brokering peace agreements, sources have said, and press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said it’s “well past time” that he be awarded one.
“We stopped a lot of countries from war — India and Pakistan. We stopped a lot of countries,” he said Sunday. “You heard about Cambodia and Thailand. We got that one done. We got the Congo, which was going on for 31 years — Rwanda, that one’s done. We stopped a lot of wars.”
A ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine is a central priority for the White House, as discussions continue for a possible summit between Mr. Trump and Vladimir Putin as soon as next week.
