Trump set to announce preliminary deal to finish battle between Azerbaijan and Armenia

[ad_1] Washington — President Trump plans to announce a pact for peace between two former Soviet republics, Azerbaijan and Armenia, on the White Home on Friday, sources acquainted with the matter advised CBS Information.

Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev, and Armenia's prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, will attend the occasions within the Oval Workplace and State Eating Room, the sources mentioned. The settlement, the primary ever inked between the 2 heads of state, comes as U.S. officers search to deepen ties with the 2 international locations, with vitality manufacturing and transit as key points of interest.

Armenia intends to announce U.S. growth rights on a 43-kilometer transit hall to be known as the "Trump Route for Worldwide Peace and Prosperity," which can assist present entry to the West, two of the sources mentioned.

U.S. officers have been working for months on an Armenia-Azerbaijan deal.

There have been a sequence of conflicts between the 2 neighbors over the previous three many years, most just lately in 2023, when Azerbaijan launched an offensive in a disputed area that triggered tens of hundreds of ethnic Armenians to flee. A ceasefire in September 2023 averted a wider warfare, and the international locations concluded talks over a peace treaty in March. However talks geared toward cementing the deal have stalled within the months since, with negotiations in Abu Dhabi in July failing to result in a breakthrough.

Particular envoy Steve Witkoff traveled to Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, in March. Aryeh Lightstone, former CEO of the Abraham Accords Peace Institute, has made a number of journeys to the area as a part of peace deal talks. The Trump administration has mentioned an Azerbaijan peace cope with its neighbor is critical earlier than it might be a part of the Abraham Accords, as a part of a plan to increase that settlement past the Arab international locations that signed as much as it in 2020 after they acknowledged Israel.

Entry into the accords is not anticipated on Friday, sources mentioned. Each Witkoff and Lightstone are anticipated to be at Friday's summit.

Azerbaijan additionally borders Russia, and has the potential to ship oil and gasoline into Ukraine with out going by means of Russia. The peace pact will open routes for items to journey to the West with out crossing Russia — or Iran, sources mentioned.

Mr. Trump has privately expressed curiosity in a Nobel Peace Prize for his function in brokering peace agreements, sources have mentioned, and press secretary Karoline Leavitt has mentioned it is "properly previous time" that he be awarded one.

"We stopped quite a lot of international locations from warfare — India and Pakistan. We stopped quite a lot of international locations," he mentioned Sunday. "You heard about Cambodia and Thailand. We acquired that one carried out. We acquired the Congo, which was happening for 31 years — Rwanda, that one's carried out. We stopped quite a lot of wars."

A ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine is a central precedence for the White Home, as discussions proceed for a possible summit between Mr. Trump and Vladimir Putin as quickly as subsequent week.