US president to host Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at White House
US President Donald Trump is set to announce a peace deal Friday between Azerbaijan and Armenia, CBS News reported Thursday.
Trump will host Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the White House, where they will attend events in the Oval Office and State Dining Room, it said, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Armenia intends to announce US development rights on a 43-kilometer (27-mile) transit corridor to be called the "Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity," which will help provide access to the West, two sources said, according to the report.
Aliyev and Pashinyan met in Abu Dhabi last month, where they discussed efforts to normalize relations and agreed to continue negotiations and confidence-building measures.
Trump said at a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office last month that efforts to reach a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan appear to be moving towards a “successful conclusion.”
Relations between the two former Soviet republics have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Karabakh -- a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan -- and seven adjacent regions.
Most of the territory was liberated by Azerbaijan during a 44-day war in the fall of 2020, which ended after a Russian-brokered peace agreement that opened the door to normalization and demarcation talks.
In September 2023, Azerbaijan established full sovereignty in Karabakh after separatist forces in the region surrendered.
In March, the two countries declared they had reached a consensus on all 17 articles of a peace deal, though it has yet to be signed.
