ANALYSIS: If Washington Snoozes, Ankara and Baku Will Write Armenia’s Future

Armenia is inching toward a diplomatic reset that could redraw the South Caucasus map. Yerevan and Baku emerged from an August 8 meeting at the White House talking about a long-awaited peace treaty. Days later, the Armenian and Turkish normalization track flickered back to life with envoys crossing an unopened border gate to meet in Yerevan. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan now says he expects an Armenia–Azerbaijan deal in the first half of next year, with Ankara–Yerevan ties normalizing shortly after. In other words: momentum is real, and it is moving fast.

That’s precisely why the United States can’t afford to drift. If Washington takes its eye off the ball, Turkey and Azerbaijan — already moving in a tight tandem — will set the terms of Armenia’s future.

The White House summit between Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and President Ilham Aliyev produced more than a photo-op. It catalyzed follow-ons: foreign ministers met again in New York; deputy prime ministers walked both sides of the border with Iran; and Yerevan hosted Turkey’s special envoy Serdar Kılıç for the first time, meeting Armenian counterpart Ruben Rubinyan inside Armenia rather than on a border berm. The two sides reiterated practical steps long discussed but rarely advanced: restoring the Kars–Gyumri railway, opening the border for diplomats and third-country citizens, and expanding flights and education ties.

Armenia has added its own symbolic kindling. It plans to remove Mount Ararat from passport stamps in November, a move critics deride but which speaks to an appetite — however tentative — to strip away signals that Ankara and Baku read as maximalist claims. Even humanitarian gestures have shifted attitudes: Armenia temporarily opened a crossing for earthquake aid to Türkiye, and Yerevan has quietly lived with indirect trade via Georgia for years while Turkish brands entered its high streets.

But momentum isn’t a destination. It needs stewardship. And on that score, Washington sometimes looks absent-minded. President Donald Trump recently boasted he ended a conflict between “Cambodia and Armenia” — a mash-up of Armenia’s conflict with Azerbaijan and a separate Cambodia–Thailand border crisis his administration did help defuse. The odd gaffe would be forgettable if it didn’t mirror a deeper risk: performative diplomacy without sustained follow-through.

Turkey and Azerbaijan aren’t shy about their timeline or outcomes. Fidan’s calendar for a first-half-of-the-year peace deal puts pressure on Yerevan. Ankara openly frames normalization with Armenia as the next stop once an Armenia–Azerbaijan treaty is done. Baku wants constitutional language it considers inflammatory removed in Armenia, and it expects a clear, functioning route to Nakhchivan. In DC the sides blessed just that—rebranding what Azerbaijan and Türkiye call the Zangezur Corridor as the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP). Deputy prime ministers have already kicked the tires on the ground.

In parallel, Türkiye is selling a bigger story to Armenians: economic connectivity to Europe via a NATO country that sits astride east-west trade and energy routes. Turkish lawmakers visiting Yerevan argue that complementary strengths in energy, logistics and manufacturing could lift both economies if politics gets out of the way. If the border opens and rail lines hum, they’ll have a persuasive case for businesses and voters who want jobs more than slogans.

Armenia’s domestic politics make that pitch potent. Pashinyan has staked his future on a “peace agenda” and faces elections next June. He needs tangible wins: safer borders, reopened trade, a credible pathway to prosperity. If the United States is not an active partner helping deliver those outcomes, the credit — and the leverage — will accrue elsewhere.

Ceding the initiative doesn’t just dent US prestige; it reshapes the architecture around Armenia. If TRIPP moves ahead without careful guardrails, the link could morph from a customs-controlled Armenian route into something Armenians fear: a corridor that dilutes their sovereignty. If the Kars–Gyumri line reopens with Turkish financing but little Western participation, Ankara will own the chokepoints and the narrative. If constitutional changes or border demarcation become a sequence dictated from abroad, Armenia’s leaders will sell peace at home as an external imposition, not a national choice — fuel for spoilers.

All the while, the Azerbaijan–Türkiye axis will consolidate a security and economic sphere that leaves Washington at best a spectator and at worst the foil. The irony is that the current burst of progress is widely labeled the “Washington Effect.” Without a second act, it could become a prologue to an Ankara-Baku settlement.

The fix isn’t grandiose; it’s disciplined. First, US diplomacy needs a single, empowered point person for the South Caucasus who can shuttle between Yerevan, Baku and Ankara with a mandate to turn the August understandings into sequenced, monitorable steps. Armenians and Azerbaijanis are already talking; the United States should be the guarantor that timelines don’t slip and that de-escalation sticks when domestic politics on either side wobble.

Second, Washington should bring tangible economic ballast. That means early commitments of US development finance for pieces of the Kars–Gyumri rehabilitation that keep Armenia from being a price-taker. It also means technical assistance so TRIPP operates under Armenian jurisdiction — customs, policing, telecoms — rather than becoming a legal black box. Quiet, boring work now prevents loud crises later.

Third, security cooperation should be pragmatic, not theatrical. Armenia is deepening ties with NATO structures and Western capitals while talking openly about hybrid threats and disinformation. US support that strengthens border management, cyber defenses and civil emergency response does more for Armenian resilience than photo-friendly weapons packages that would simply invite escalation.

Finally, messaging matters. Armenians notice when US leaders confuse their conflicts, and so do their neighbors. Precision, patience and presence — showing up when demarcation teams hit a snag, when opposition in Yerevan or Baku flares, when envoys need cover to keep talking — signal that Washington is invested in the outcome, not just the optics.

A year from now, Armenia could be trading across an opened frontier, trains could be rattling between Gyumri and Kars, and a functional, sovereign route to Nakhchivan could be under Armenian control with international backing. Or the region could snap back to recrimination, with Turkey and Azerbaijan writing the rules, and the United States explaining how the “Washington Effect” somehow produced an Ankara-Baku settlement.

Armenia doesn’t need an American savior; it needs a consistent American partner. If Washington pulls itself together — keeps the diplomacy focused, matches it with practical investment, and protects Armenian sovereignty in the fine print — it won’t just retain influence in Yerevan. It will help lock in a peace that endures longer than a news cycle and is owned by the people who have to live with it.