Minsk Group Dissolution, Peace Agreement, ‘Trump Route’: What Pashinyan and Aliyev May Sign in US

Alex Raufoglu, Kyiv Post’s Chief Correspondent in Washington DC, reported that on Friday, August 8, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev will sign several pivotal documents at the White House, witnessed by President Trump.

🔹Joint declaration: This will formalize a “concrete pathway to peace” and full normalization of relations, which officials described as being “as close to irreversible as possible.”

🔹Initialing a peace agreement: The foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia will initial the text of a bilateral peace agreement that has been under negotiation for months.

🔹Joint letter to exit the Minsk Group: Both countries will formally withdraw from the OSCE Minsk Group, a mediation platform that has been deemed “not helpful” and in need of a fresh approach.

🔹New bilateral MOUs: The US will sign separate memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with Armenia and Azerbaijan, “relaunching” and “launching” their respective bilateral relationships and opening up opportunities previously unthinkable.

“The centerpiece of the agreement is a new commercial and infrastructure project dubbed the ‘Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity’ – or TRIPP for short. This innovative framework is designed to resolve the most contentious issue between the two nations: connectivity. will establish a transit route through southern Armenia, providing unimpeded access for Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan. TRIPP is not a military or defense initiative. Officials were clear that the US is not providing a ‘hard security guarantee’ or deploying forces to the route. Instead, US involvement will be purely commercial, with the US taking on the responsibility to ensure the route ‘operates safely for all parties’ through agreements with ‘top-class operators’,” the article noted.