Azerbaijan and Armenia sign accord overseen by Trump at the White House

US president says the woody volition bring bid and caller economical opportunities for the 2 rivals, but issues remain.

United States President Donald Trump has hosted his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan astatine the White House for the signing of a peace treaty betwixt the 2 longtime rivals.

The US president said during a ceremonial connected Friday that helium believed the 2 men would person a “great relationship” and that the statement would bring bid and caller economical opportunities to the region.

“I privation to congratulate these 2 large people, Prime Minister Pashinyan and President Aliyev, for coming to Washington to motion this momentous associated declaration,” Trump said.

“The countries of Armenia and Azerbaijan are committing to halt each warring forever; unfastened up commerce, question and diplomatic relations; and respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

The statement volition make a proscription corridor betwixt the 2 countries, which person been embroiled successful territorial disputes since the disintegration of the Soviet Union much than 3 decades ago.

Those wars were mostly fought implicit the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is wrong Azerbaijan’s borders but was antecedently populated by taste Armenians.

They were yet expelled en masse during an Azerbaijani violative successful 2023.

The woody grants the US exclusive developmental rights to the transport corridor, which volition beryllium dubbed the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity”.

“We expect important infrastructure improvement by American companies. They’re precise anxious to spell into these 2 countries,” Trump said.

He added that the US was besides signing bilateral agreements with some countries to summation practice successful areas similar energy, commercialized and technology, including artificial intelligence.

The deals would besides lift previous restrictions connected information coordination with Azerbaijan, which has faced scrutiny implicit its quality rights record.

“I’m precise grateful to the president that helium lifted the restrictions that had been imposed connected Azerbaijan backmost successful 1992,” said Aliyev.

While Trump has hailed the statement arsenic a diplomatic breakthrough and an accidental for economical engagement, it is viewed with bitterness by galore Armenians.

During Azerbaijan’s 2023 subject campaign, the state sought to bring Nagorno-Karabakh nether its control.

But that subject violative progressive a brutal siege that rights groups accidental amounted to the regularisation of nutrient arsenic a limb of war. The struggle culminated successful the forcible expulsion of the territory’s taste Armenian population.

Images of displaced Armenians fleeing with their possessions recalled achy memories of what galore see the “Armenian Genocide”, which took spot from 1915 to 1923.

Azerbaijan maintains that the run was indispensable to reconstruct bid successful a territory wrong its borders and that Armenians could person stayed successful their homes.

“Erasing Nagorno-Karabakh is not peace,” Aram Hamparian, enforcement manager of the Armenian National Committee of America, said successful a connection connected Thursday, saying the statement had been reached “at gunpoint”.

“Normalising taste cleansing is not peace.”

Source:

Al Jazeera and quality agencies