The summit also resulted in the adoption of several ancillary arrangements as part of a package mediated by the Trump administration, some more significant than others. Inter alia, the abolition of the already moribund OSCE Minsk Group - the main format for negotiations prior to the 2020 war - had long been one of Azerbaijan’s key demands, as had the lifting of a long-standing US arms sales ban under section 907 of the Freedom Support Act. Conversely, Baku officially affirmed its adherence to Armenia’s territorial integrity by accepting the ‘Alma Ata principles’, without, however, explicitly committing to withdrawing from the several hundred square kilometres of undisputed Armenian land captured following the 2020 Karabakh War.
But, undoubtedly, the main outcome of the peace summit was the somewhat sycophantically named ‘Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity’ (TRIPP). This initiative aimed to resolve one of the outstanding sticking points between the two antagonists. The Russian-negotiated ceasefire of November 2020 had included a Russian-controlled transportation link between Azerbaijan proper and its exclave of Nakhichevan as one of its nine points. However, in the years since, Baku had demanded that this link across Armenian territory - referred to by itself as the 'Zangezur Corridor' - receive extra-territorial status, something adamantly rejected by Yerevan.
Moscow - long supportive of the Azerbaijani position - has now suffered a significant setback: Armenian resistance to Russian involvement and Baku’s recent deterioration in relations with Russia have prompted the adoption of a US-led ‘creative solution’: this involves the partial outsourcing of some of the Armenian state’s functions to a US/Armenian consortium with the exclusive rights to develop and manage communications and transportation over that strategic link. US individuals will handle front-office functions, while their Armenian counterparts will oversee the application of Armenian legislation in the background.
Baku's stated aim of achieving a maximally frictionless link to its exclave, and, further, to Turkey, will thus be achieved; meanwhile the government in Yerevan will be able to claim the absence of extraterritoriality in view of the continued application of Armenian legislation and the operation's formally commercial nature. For its part, Washington will gain an important foothold in the South Caucasus by controlling a crucial part of the 'Middle Corridor' between Central Asia and Turkey. A 'win-win' for all involved - or so it would appear.
It is important to note here that much of this framework as yet remains on paper: its most important elements remain in the planning stages, and a final peace accord between the parties has not been concluded. And, to paraphrase Robert Burns, even the best-laid peace plans of men can go awry: and in the particular case of last Friday's outcomes, the peace process and the package outlined above still face a number of vulnerabilities and challenges which, when taken into account, should temper the irrational exuberance seen in some quarters over the past few days.
In fact, the general historical record includes a great number of such processes regarding protracted conflicts that, in the end, failed to live up to their initial promise for any number of reasons: lack of commitment by guarantors, by the parties themselves, changes in government, shifts in the international context, disgruntled spoilers, and the like. The Oslo accords regarding Israel-Palestine come to mind; but so do the peace processes in Sri Lanka, or between North and South Vietnam in 1973, all of which resulted in renewed violent conflict after the initial promises of peace - and associated Nobel prizes - had worn away. More recently, the much-touted proposal for Abraham accords - a brain child of the very US administration now pushing TRIPP - was followed by the dramatic escalation in the Middle East we see today.
Challenges to the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process - as envisaged in Washington DC - come at three different levels: the systemic, i.e. from shifts in the international system as a whole, which we now know to be highly unstable, and most probably transitioning to a new paradigm; the regional, that is, from sidelined and aggrieved regional powers, in this case Russia and Iran; and the domestic, or, in other words, the political processes within Azerbaijani and Armenian state and society. Let's go through these levels one by one.
From a systemic perspective, some might present this as a successful hegemonic intervention aimed at upholding a rules-based order in the face of a possible Azerbaijani land-grab in southern Armenia, or Russian post-imperial meddling in the South Caucasus; a less charitable view would be that of a great power exploiting the weakness of a cornered state and the desperation of its leaders, for low-cost geopolitical opportunism and international prestige. With the Liberal International Order - if it ever truly existed - in its death throes, it might perhaps be more accurate to use the second, less charitable characterisation, not least in light of fundamental changes in its onetime liberal hegemon, the United States.
Sycophantic nomenclature can thus only go part way in addressing the Trump administration's performative, fickle and unpredictable nature; more than that, its clearly transactional view of international politics cannot be ignored over the longer term. The price Trump's America is willing to pay to keep hold of that easy win once the going gets tough remains an open question; so does the price it is willing to make others - in this case, Armenia - pay for its continued patronage. With Ukraine now facing a US administration all too willing to barter away its territory in talks with Moscow, serious questions should be asked about what would happen if and when the implicit engagement of the US in the region through TRIPP requires the expenditure of political, economic or military capital. These arrangements will also face a reckoning with a change in administration in Washington DC: there appears to be a substantial personal element in this 'deal', and whether subsequent administrations will cling on to something that does not appear to be part of America's redefined core interests - in the Western hemisphere and, perhaps, East Asia - is also open to questioning.
At the regional level, Russia and Iran pose the greatest potential challenges to TRIPP. Contrary to the more hyperbolic claims that this deal means the ejection of the former from the region, Moscow still maintains a substantial and potentially disruptive economic and military presence, notably in Armenia. Tehran, for its part, has made its opposition to any extraterritorial arrangements in Armenia's Syunik province clear, quite apart from its obvious - and recently reiterated - unease at a substantially bolstered American presence in the region.
TRIPP might not involve a formal cession of sovereignty; but, over the longer term, it would create a potential informal mechanism influencing Armenia's foreign policy and reducing its ability to pursue national interests where they diverge from the United States', unwillingly drawing it into the maelstrom of conflicts between the United States and Iran or Russia. Neither Russia nor Iran would have to be remotely hegemonic in the South Caucasus to effectively act as spoilers if either saw the arrangement as aimed at itself: it would therefore be a major mistake to dismiss these two powers' ability to thwart and sabotage if their interests are not taken into account.
Yet, these considerations would not require Moscow's or Tehran's explicit approval or participation: even their grudging acquiescence would suffice. Early signals from Tehran and Moscow have been mixed at best; maintaining their acquiescence will require a great deal of diplomatic finesse and restraint from all sides in the deal, not least in Washington DC, where neoconservative voices are already profiling TRIPP in terms of their particular interventionist Iranian obsession, with potentially disastrous consequences for Armenia in particular, and the wider region more generally. This is where Trump's previously mentioned non-interventionist and transactional instincts may prove paradoxically beneficial to the arrangement, highlighting the complex - and contradictory - realities which will surround the project in coming years.
Finally, when it comes to the domestic dynamics in Azerbaijan and Armenia, what stands out is the difference between the two states, their societies, and their political elites. Azerbaijan's fabulously corrupt Aliyev family has been firmly in control of an authoritarian dictatorship since 1994; on the other hand, the domestic politics of Armenia - an as yet imperfect liberal democracy - remain particularly toxic, fractious and polarised. Either side provides a very different set of potential challenges to the peace process.
A cynic might claim that, in the absence of a functional opposition, Azerbaijan's authoritarianism makes the task of pushing through any final agreement easier. This would hold if it weren't for the propaganda narratives pumped out by the regime since 2020, where Ilham Aliyev is presented as the 'liberator' of Nagorno-Karabakh, and the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan continues to be depicted in at times openly and crudely racist and essentialist terms. That much of the recent repression of civil society has also centred on pro-peace groups and activists should also provide those with a more blinkered view of Baku's intentions with food for thought.
The question very much remains whether the ruling dynasty could pivot its sources of legitimacy to something other than the nationalist jingoism of recent years, from 'Aliyev the Conqueror' to 'Aliyev the Peacemaker'. Baku has also long maintained a multi-vectoral foreign and security policy which would by no means preclude a pivot back to Russia - and away from any arrangements under Western auspices - should that be deemed necessary, or advantageous in the future. A more than fleeting interest in the peace process would therefore require a careful monitoring of Azerbaijan's official rhetoric and media discourses in coming months and years for the potential emergence of an alternative mobilisational narrative.
Armenia’s situation is more complex. In what remains a risky and incomplete move, Pashinyan's elected government is still managing its crushing defeat in the 2020 war by recalibrating the country's foreign and security policies away from long-standing dependence on Russia. The past few years have also seen a slew of unilateral concessions to Azerbaijan, with little to show for in terms of tangible and visible gains, save perhaps for the absence of a full-scale assault on Armenia proper: the population of Nagorno-Karabakh was ethnically cleansed in 2022, the Turkish border remains shut (even after the Washington summit), Armenian prisoners remain in Baku, and Azerbaijani troops still occupy several hundred square kilometres of Armenian territory captured after the 2020 war.
Armenia's imperfect democracy makes the success of the Washington process dependent on the vagaries of Armenia's electoral cycle and its incumbent government's record, which is certainly open to legitimate criticism. This is all the more significant because of one precondition still insisted upon by Baku before the final conclusion of any peace agreement: a change in Armenia's constitution. The next parliamentary polls - and, presumably, said constitutional referendum - are scheduled for 2026; and it remains to be seen whether the prime minister - who, with an approval rating of a mere 13%, is at best the least unpopular of Armenia's politicians - will be able to persuade a largely disillusioned or undecided population to back a peace agreement that was largely the result of imposition rather than mutually respectful negotiation.
Pashinyan and his entourage, who came to power in 2018 through a democratic revolution, now face a dilemma. They might face a choice between risking the collapse of the peace process, which has become synonymous with the Prime Minister’s person, or pushing it through by authoritarian means. The auspices are not good in that regard. The domestic debate on Armenia's geopolitical orientation, and its relations with Russia, Turkey and Azerbaijan has, in effect, degenerated into a vulgar shouting match in which opposition figures routinely describe the Pashinyan government as one of 'Turkish occupation', while any criticism or questioning - however legitimate or articulate - of choices made by the government are dismissed as the work of 'Russian agents', a charge which might or might not be spuriously levelled to silence or sideline opponents in the run-up to next year's vote.
The absence of a healthy debate and a clear democratic choice in 2026 would risk creating a festering wound in Armenian society, potentially undermining any agreement signed, and imposed, by a government lacking in legitimacy over the long term. Not that the West would care. After all, the ethnic cleansing of minorities and the extirpation of democracy can be tolerated when geopolitics so demand; doubly so when it comes to the Trump administration.
