Azerbaijan and Armenia on Monday released the text of a peace agreement mediated by the United States, vowing to recognize each other’s territorial integrity and bring a formal end to nearly four decades of conflict.
The deal was struck in Washington last Friday, when Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met with U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House.
The text of the agreement, published by both countries’ foreign ministries, says Yerevan and Baku will relinquish all claims to each other’s territory, refrain from using force against one another and pledge to respect international law.
“This agreement is a solid foundation for establishing a reliable and lasting peace, the result of an agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan that reflects the balanced interests of the two countries,” Pashinyan wrote on Facebook.
Armenia and Azerbaijan, neighbours in the South Caucasus region, have been locked in conflict since the late 1980s over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region at the southern end of the Karabakh mountain range, within Azerbaijan. Baku took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting almost all of the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
Since then both sides have said they want peace, but talks have largely stalled until this month.
Bilateral Ties
At the White House meeting on Friday, the United States gained exclusive development rights to a strategic transit corridor through the South Caucasus that the Trump administration said would boost bilateral economic ties and allow for greater exports of energy.
Trump said the two countries had committed to stop fighting, open up diplomatic relations and respect each other’s territorial integrity.
He said restrictions had also been lifted on defence cooperation between Azerbaijan and the United States, a development that could also worry Moscow.
Both leaders praised Trump for helping to end the conflict and said they would nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize.
(With inputs from Reuters)
