\n<\/p>\n
US president says the deal will bring peace and new economic opportunities for the two rivals, but issues remain.<\/em><\/p>\n United States President Donald Trump has hosted his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the White House for the signing of a peace treaty between the two longtime rivals.<\/p>\n The US president said during a ceremony on Friday that he believed the two men would have a \u201cgreat relationship\u201d and that the agreement would bring peace and new economic opportunities to the region.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to congratulate these two great people, Prime Minister Pashinyan and President Aliyev, for coming to Washington to sign this momentous joint declaration,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe countries of Armenia and Azerbaijan are committing to stop all fighting forever; open up commerce, travel and diplomatic relations; and respect each other\u2019s sovereignty and territorial integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n The agreement will create a transportation corridor between the two countries, which have fought over territorial disputes since the disintegration of the Soviet Union more than three decades ago.<\/p>\n Those wars were largely fought over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is within Azerbaijan\u2019s borders but was previously populated by ethnic Armenians.<\/p>\n They were ultimately expelled en masse during an Azerbaijani offensive in 2023.<\/p>\n The deal grants the US exclusive developmental rights to the transport corridor, which will be dubbed the \u201cTrump Route for International Peace and Prosperity\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe anticipate significant infrastructure development by American companies. They\u2019re very anxious to go in to these two countries,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n He added that the US was also signing bilateral agreements with both countries to increase cooperation in areas like energy, trade and technology, including artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n The deals would also lift\u00a0previous restrictions on security coordination with Azerbaijan, which has faced scrutiny over its human rights record.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very grateful to the president that he lifted the restrictions that had been imposed on Azerbaijan back in 1992,\u201d said Aliyev.<\/p>\n While Trump has hailed the agreement as a diplomatic breakthrough and an opportunity for economic engagement, it is viewed with bitterness by many Armenians.<\/p>\n During Azerbaijan\u2019s 2023 military campaign, the country sought to\u00a0bring Nagorno Karabakh under its control.<\/p>\n But that military offensive involved a brutal siege that rights groups say amounted to the restriction of food as a weapon of war. The conflict culminated in the forcible expulsion of the territory\u2019s ethnic Armenian population.<\/p>\n Images of displaced Armenians fleeing with their possessions recalled painful memories of the Armenian Genocide, which took place from 1915 to 1923.<\/p>\n Azerbaijan maintains that the campaign was necessary to restore order in a territory within its borders and that Armenians could have stayed in their homes.<\/p>\n \u201cErasing Nagorno Karabakh is not peace,\u201d Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, said in a statement on Thursday, saying the agreement had been reached \u201cat gunpoint\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cNormalising ethnic cleansing is not peace.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" US president says the deal will bring peace and new economic opportunities for the two rivals, but issues remain. United States President Donald Trump has hosted his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the White House for the signing of a peace treaty between the two longtime rivals. The US<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[8350,3396,3397,964,671,150,8351,3145,81,2168],"class_list":{"0":"post-14746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-accord","9":"tag-armenia","10":"tag-azerbaijan","11":"tag-donald","12":"tag-house","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-overseen","15":"tag-sign","16":"tag-trump","17":"tag-white"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}