Trump said Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev would also be signing agreements with the US to “pursue economic opportunities together, so we can fully unlock the potential of the South Caucasus Region.”
The prospective agreement could potentially put an end to decades of conflict and set the stage for a reopening of key transportation corridors across the South Caucasus that have been shut since the early 1990s, the AP reported.
Three US officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly ahead of the announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the agreements included a major breakthrough establishing a key transit corridor across the region, which had been a hang-up in peace talks.
The agreement, according to the officials, would give the US leasing rights to develop the corridor and name it the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity.
It would link Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan region, which is separated from the rest of the country by a 32-kilometer patch of Armenia’s territory.
The transit corridor is expected to eventually include a rail line, oil and gas lines, and fiber optic lines, allowing for the movement of goods and eventually people. The deal does not call for the US to pay for the construction of the transit corridor, but instead for private corporations to develop it.
The deal was reached after a visit earlier this year by Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff to Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku and continued talks between the parties.