WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump will host the leaders of sworn enemies Armenia and Azerbaijan on Friday, touting the prospect of sealing a long-sought peace deal between the two regional rivals after decades of conflict.<\/p>\n
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev will attend a \u201cPeace Signing Ceremony\u201d at the White House, Trump posted Thursday on his Truth Social platform.<\/p>\n
The latest US diplomatic push comes a day after Cambodia\u2019s prime minister announced he had nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize.<\/p>\n
Trump has repeatedly praised his own diplomatic efforts, saying he deserves the prize, while also voicing frustration about the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and the hunger plaguing Gaza during Israel\u2019s offensive.<\/p>\n
Peace has also been elusive for Armenia and Azerbaijan. Sworn enemies for decades, the two former Soviet republics went to war twice over the disputed Karabakh region, which Azerbaijan recaptured from Armenian forces in a lightning 2023 offensive, sparking the exodus of more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians.<\/p>\n
The two countries have held talks aimed at securing a peaceful resolution, including last month in the United Arab Emirates, but a breakthrough has proved elusive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese two Nations have been at War for many years, resulting in the deaths of thousands of people,\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany Leaders have tried to end the War, with no success, until now, thanks to \u2018TRUMP.\u2019 My Administration has been engaged with both sides for quite some time,\u201d he added, saying he was \u201cvery proud of these courageous Leaders for doing the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Friday \u201cwill be a Historic Day for Armenia, Azerbaijan, the United States, and, THE WORLD,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
Trump, a billionaire business tycoon, also said that Washington will sign bilateral deals with both countries \u201cto pursue Economic opportunities together, so we can fully unlock the potential of the South Caucasus Region.\u201d<\/p>\n
One major agreement was already inked in Washington on Thursday, when Aliyev and Trump\u2019s special envoy Steve Witkoff were present for a memorandum of cooperation signed between ExxonMobil and Azerbaijan\u2019s state energy company SOCAR.<\/p>\n
Aliyev and Witkoff then sat down for talks, the Azerbaijan president posted on X.<\/p>\n
The former Soviet republics had agreed on the text of a comprehensive peace deal in March.<\/p>\n
But Azerbaijan has since outlined a host of demands \u2014 including amendments to Armenia\u2019s constitution to drop territorial claims for Karabakh \u2014 before signing the document.<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear Thursday whether those demands have been met. And while Trump said his administration \u201chas been engaged with both sides for quite some time,\u201d he did not provide specifics on the document that will be signed by representatives of the two countries.<\/p>\n
In early July, Pashinyan and Aliyev met for the latest round of peace talks in the United Arab Emirates, but they failed to yield a breakthrough.<\/p>\n
The two foes had previously met on the sidelines of the European Political Community summit in Albania in May.<\/p>\n
At the time, French President Emmanuel Macron and European Council President Antonio Costa called for a prompt signature of a peace agreement between the two countries.<\/p>\n
A deal to normalize ties would be a major breakthrough in a region where Russia, the European Union, the United States and Turkiye all jostle for influence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump will host the leaders of sworn enemies Armenia and Azerbaijan on Friday, touting the prospect of sealing a long-sought peace deal between the two regional rivals after decades of conflict. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev will attend a \u201cPeace Signing Ceremony\u201d at the White House, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":85072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85073,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85071\/revisions\/85073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}