ANALYSIS: A Month after the Washington Handshake. What Moved in the Armenia–Azerbaijan Peace Push?

It’s been four weeks since Ilham Aliyev and Nikol Pashinyan joined Donald Trump at the White House and inked the seven-point Washington Declaration. Big promises, bold branding (hello, TRIPP corridor), and plenty of global side-eye. One month on, what’s changed beyond the photo-op—and what still has to happen before anyone can call this “peace”?

Both governments published the initialed peace agreement on Aug. 11, which matters for transparency and domestic buy-in. It’s not signed or ratified, but the draft exists in public view—rare in this conflict’s history.

Baku and Yerevan jointly asked to shut the OSCE Minsk Group, the long-stalled format co-chaired by the US, France, and Russia. On Sept. 1, the OSCE Ministerial Council formally decided to close the Minsk Process and told the Secretariat to wrap the admin by Dec. 1. That’s a big symbolic and procedural break from the 1994–2020 era.

The declaration blessed a sovereign transit link across southern Armenia connecting mainland Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan—rebranded the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP). Armenia proposed the name, and Washington committed to an exclusive partnership to help design/finance/manage the corridor (potentially up to 99 years), via a US company still to be named. Azerbaijan says it will finish rail upgrades on its side this year and in Nakhchivan has started work.

For the first time in memory, Pashinyan’s government jet transited Azerbaijani airspace (Aug. 30 outbound, Sept. 6 inbound) after Yerevan requested clearance post-Washington. Armenia framed it as a practical gesture toward “unblocking” regional links.

On Sept. 5, border commission chairs Mher Grigoryan (Armenia) and Shahin Mustafayev (Azerbaijan) held mutual visits—a first—discussing delimitation, demining, and infrastructure on the frontier. This builds on spring 2024 progress demarcating a 12-km stretch and the return by negotiation of four Gazakh villages to Azerbaijan, later ratified by both parliaments.

Aliyev and Trump signed an MoU in Washington to create a Strategic Working Group that will draft a Strategic Partnership Charter. On top of that, Washington suspended Section 907 of the 1992 Freedom Support Act, reopening the door to direct US assistance to Azerbaijan.

Armenia and Turkey’s special envoys plan to meet in Armenia “in the coming days,” with talk of Ani bridge restoration and Kars–Gyumri rail parameters on the table. Ankara has tied real movement to progress with Baku, so TRIPP and the peace text create space—if they hold.

Yerevan kept Iran ties humming—including a fresh science-cooperation MoU and Pezeshkian’s August visit—while telling Tehran the TRIPP project involves civilian US engineering, not security deployments. That nuance is designed to calm nerves on Armenia’s Iran border, where Russian guards still operate in places.

Baku wants Yerevan to amend the constitution to remove references interpreted as territorial claims on Karabakh (rooted in the 1990 Declaration of Independence). Pashinyan launched work on a new basic law—but any change requires a referendum with tough thresholds: at least 25% of the electorate (≈650k voters) and >50% approval among those voting. Politically hard, slow, and vulnerable to spoilers.

Sovereignty over the road/rail is now framed as fully Armenian (no “extraterritorial corridor”), but modalities remain fuzzy:

• Customs/jurisdiction: Armenia is in the EAEU; goods and tariffs must align with bloc rules. Russia has flagged that.
• Security: Checkpoints? Joint patrols? Tech monitoring? Earlier US–EU signals favored symmetric, sovereign controls (e.g., checkpoints at entry/exit), but details are TBD.
• Russian border guards: Still present at parts of the Armenia–Iran border since 1992. Yerevan says it will gradually increase Armenian guard presence; a complete pullback is not announced.

The draft peace text reportedly says no third-country forces on the border, which collides with the EU Monitoring Mission’s current 2027 mandate on Armenian territory. Yerevan hints that if a peace deal signs, the EU mission might not be needed—but that’s a sequencing and optics puzzle for Brussels and Baku alike.

The draft peace omits provisions for the return of Karabakh Armenians. Baku cites reciprocity, pointing to Azerbaijanis who fled Armenia in the late 1980s. Yerevan says any bilateral “right of return” talk risks fresh tension and urges integration in Armenia instead. This is the process’s largest moral and political vacuum—and a likely pressure point down the road.

Sergey Lavrov says the Washington momentum “remains to be seen” in practice and notes that not everything is agreed in the released text. Russia also bristles at US firms touching core South Caucasus infrastructure and keeps reminding everyone its 2020–22 trilaterals remain valid.

Tehran’s hardline voices blasted the deal as an American power play; official channels sounded more measured, insisting on no US security footprint and no change to borders. Armenia publicly assures Iran the project is economic, not military. That signaling needs to continue, consistently.

In Armenia, opposition figures like Edmon Marukyan accuse the government of conceding too much on corridor control. In Azerbaijan, expectations are high for rapid TRIPP delivery and constitutional change in Armenia. In the US, the high-profile White House role creates ownership—and scrutiny.

In one month, the sides have converted some big Washington signals into small, steady actions: publishing texts, ending old formats, testing airspace, meeting at the border, and teeing up connectivity plans. The hard parts—Armenia’s constitution, TRIPP governance, human returns, and great-power sensitivities—are still ahead. But for a conflict that spent decades trapped in abstractions, the most encouraging thing is practical, low-drama movement on the ground. Keep your eye on tenders, trenches, and timetables—less glamorous than summits, but where this peace will live or die.