President Donald Trump will host a signing ceremony at the White House on Aug. 8 for a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
In a Truth Social post on Aug. 7, Trump wrote that he’d be hosting the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan for a “Historic Peace Summit” at the White House on Friday.
“These two Nations have been at War for many years, resulting in the deaths of thousands of people. Many Leaders have tried to end the War, with no success, until now,” Trump said, adding that his administration has been “engaged with both sides for quite some time.”
Trump will also sign bilateral agreements with Armenia and Azerbaijan “to pursue Economic opportunities together, so we can fully unlock the potential of the South Caucasus Region.”
The two nations have engaged in cross-border conflicts since the late 1980s. At the time, the Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which had a mostly ethnic-Armenian population, broke away from Azerbaijan with Armenia’s support.
Since winning independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars, with Azerbaijan reclaiming large portions of territory in 2020. In 2023, its forces captured the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
A peace agreement between the two nations could transform the South Caucasus, an energy-producing region that neighbors Europe, Turkey, Iran, and Russia. The South Caucasus is intersected by gas and oil pipelines but beset by longstanding ethnic conflicts and closed borders.
“I am very proud of these courageous Leaders for doing the right thing for the Great People of Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Trump said on Truth Social. “It will be a Historic Day for Armenia, Azerbaijan, the United States, and THE WORLD.”
In March, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff visited the Armenian-Azerbaijan region to work towards negotiating a peace agreement between the two neighbors.
The announcement of Friday’s peace signing ceremony follows Trump’s recent diplomatic efforts that culminated in peace talk breakthroughs between India and Pakistan, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Cambodia and Thailand.
However, a highly anticipated cease-fire between Moscow and Kyiv to end a more than three-year-long war that began with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has been more elusive.
Last week, Trump urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to end his war in Ukraine within “10 or 12 days from today” or face new economic sanctions and punitive measures.
The Kremlin said on Thursday that it would meet with the U.S. president “in the coming days.”
Ryan Morgan, Victoria Friedman, Chris Summers, and Reuters contributed to this report.
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