The deal that wasn’t: Armenia and Azerbaijan didn’t actually sign a peace agreement at the White House. So why did their leaders say Trump deserves a Nobel Prize?

Meduza

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s meeting in Washington on August 8 set off a wave of celebration. The White House called it historic, and Western media was quick to report that thanks to U.S. President Donald Trump’s mediation, a decades-long conflict had finally been put to rest. Aliyev and Pashinyan even went so far as to say that Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. But the truth — believe it or not — is more complicated. For Meduza, Caucasus expert Roman Chernikov breaks down what really happened at the White House summit and what issues the two countries still need to resolve.

Little more than a photo-op

A day before Friday’s summit in Washington, Donald Trump wrote a misleading post on his Truth Social platform calling the meeting an “official Peace Signing Ceremony.” Major global outlets like Associated Press, CNBC, and Euronews were quick to reprint that wording. In reality, however, the two parties only signed a declaration containing a straightforward and fairly obvious seven-point statement.

The first point reads:

The two leaders then initialed the peace treaty, which contains 17 points, to indicate they agreed with the text and wouldn’t push for any wording changes. However, they still have yet to sign it. (The text of the document wasn’t made public until three days later, on August 11.)

Negotiations over the treaty’s text have been ongoing since 2020, involving Russia, the European Union, and the United States. At one point, there was even talk of two separate versions of the agreement. But the final text was agreed upon by the parties themselves, without mediators, in March, when Armenia accepted the last two disputed points.

Thus, the White House event was basically just a ceremonial gesture — after all, the two countries’ foreign ministers had already deemed the document ready five months earlier. When the heads of state will actually sign it remains unknown.

If this wasn’t a peace treaty signing, why were Aliyev and Pashinyan celebrating Trump?

For both Yerevan and Baku, maintaining good relations with Trump is important — so that in the event of renewed tensions, they can appeal to him and accuse the other side of breaking the agreement’s terms. This is especially crucial for Armenia, which is in a weaker position. Trump’s conviction that the conflict in the South Caucasus is over serves as a kind of insurance for Yerevan against another war, at least for the next three years, until the next U.S. presidential election.

What needs to happen for the countries to finally sign the real peace treaty?

Azerbaijan has two demands of Yerevan it has never backed down from: dismantling the OSCE Minsk Group, which has mediated the conflict since 1992, and amending Armenia’s Constitution, which Baku believes contains territorial claims.

So far, there’s been some progress only on the first demand. Among other documents signed in Washington was a joint appeal from Armenia and Azerbaijan to the OSCE, asking to dissolve the Minsk Group now that the conflict is considered over. But that’s not enough — the final decision will be put to an OSCE foreign ministers’ vote at their meeting in Vienna on December 4–5. There’s little doubt the vote will pass.

The situation with the Armenian Constitution is more complicated. Nikol Pashinyan has repeatedly shifted his position — at times announcing a constitutional referendum for 2027, at others saying that no changes are necessary.

In late May, Pashinyan even proposed adding another layer of review for the peace agreement:

This rhetoric is mostly populist. Submitting a draft peace treaty to the Constitutional Court is certainly possible, but it is unlikely to convince Azerbaijan’s Aliyev. In all probability, Pashinyan will still have to amend the Constitution — but he will only move on it after the parliamentary elections in June 2026, so as not to damage his approval rating.

Pashinyan’s election campaign will likely be built on the claim that his chosen diplomatic course has brought the country as close as possible to signing a peace treaty and securing security guarantees from the most powerful country in the world — the United States. But to finish the job, he’ll argue, Armenians need to give him another term. Only then will the Armenian authorities be able to proceed with all the unpopular measures (such as border delimitation) and prepare for the referendum.

Will the peace treaty involve Armenia giving up Karabakh completely?

Yes. The treaty states that both countries confirm “the boundaries between the Soviet Socialist Republics of the former USSR became the international borders of respective independent states” and respect one another’s territorial integrity. This means Karabakh is officially Azerbaijani territory.

Earlier drafts of the treaty included rights for Karabakh’s Armenian residents, but that was before September 2023 (when Armenia lost control of Karabakh). Additionally, Azerbaijan insisted on including the right of return for Azerbaijanis who were expelled from Armenia at the start of the conflict in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Another major concern for Armenian society is the fate of Armenian prisoners held in Baku, including former Karabakh leaders and ordinary soldiers whom Azerbaijan refuses to classify as prisoners of war because they were detained after November 9, 2020. However, the peace treaty does not guarantee their release — Baku wants to keep that issue for the future as a political bargaining chip.

What is the ‘Trump Route’ everybody’s talking about?

That’s the new name being used for the “Zangezur corridor” — a proposed route connecting mainland Azerbaijan to the exclave of Nakhchivan through Armenian territory. Although its opening isn’t mentioned in the peace treaty (the issue sparked so much controversy that it was left out), Baku has made it clear it’s not giving up on the idea.

It was the Trump administration that came up with a proposal that apparently satisfied both Baku and Yerevan. The details remain unclear, but the core idea is that an American company would manage the Armenian section of the road. The project’s official name is as grandiose as it gets: the Trump Road for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).

The specifics are likely spelled out in a different document signed the same day between Yerevan and Washington — the “Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the Republic of Armenia and the Government of the United States of America on Partnership in the Field of Capacity Development of the ‘Crossroads of Peace’ Project.”

The full text hasn’t been released yet, but the main demands from each side have long been known. Baku insists traffic along the road must be “unimpeded” (a word that appears in the trilateral declaration), while Yerevan argues it can’t be called a “corridor” and that the road must operate under Armenian law and respect its national sovereignty. How these conflicting points will be resolved remains an open question.

What does Moscow think of the agreement?

There’s no question this agreement is a sign of Russia’s waning influence in the South Caucasus — especially when it comes to transportation links. After 2020, a commission including Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk was responsible for reopening roads, and the 2020 agreement ending the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War clearly stated that Russian border guards would control the “Zangezur corridor.” But as early as last fall, officials in Yerevan said the commission had effectively stopped working “due to a lack of consensus.”

That said, Russian border guards do still play a role in the region, continuing to patrol the Armenia–Iran border (though they no longer check documents at the Agarak checkpoint). This means they’ll need to find a way to coexist alongside any American presence in the region.

Relations with Trump are important not only to Yerevan and Baku but also to Moscow, which is why Russia refrained from criticizing the “peace summit” in Washington.

“The meeting of the South Caucasus leaders in Washington, facilitated by the American side, deserves a positive assessment. We hope this step will help advance the peace agenda,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova. This isn’t surprising — Moscow’s real influence in the region was already lost back in 2023 when Armenians withdrew from Karabakh,

Whether Russia will be able to use the so-called “Trump Route” for rail connections to Turkey and Iran is still an open question. Nikol Pashinyan himself has already assured Moscow that this remains a possibility.

What about Iran? Will it really accept the ‘Trump Route’ on its border?

Iran’s reaction to the news from Washington has been the toughest so far. Ali Akbar Velayati, an advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader, said Iranian territory could continue to be used to connect mainland Azerbaijan with Nakhichevan, and added that he would oppose the creation of the “Trump Route,” whether Russia is involved or not. “NATO wants to wedge itself between Russia and Iran like a viper, but Iran won’t allow it,” he said.

It’s worth noting that right now, an Iranian company is building a road in Armenia’s Syunik province meant to connect the country’s north and south. This means that sooner or later, Iranian builders will have to come face-to-face with the American company managing the Trump Road (their routes are almost perpendicular). How these roads intersect will be an important engineering and political challenge.