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U.S. secures strategic transport corridor in Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Deal

Officials have confirmed that when U.S. president Donald Trump hosts the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia at the White House this Friday, it will culminate with the signing of an agreement for peace, which includes exclusive U.S. rights of development to a strategic corridor running through the South Caucasus.

Since the late 1980s, Armenia and Azerbaijan are at odds. This is because Nagorno Karabakh - a region of Azerbaijan that was populated primarily by ethnic Armenians - separated from Azerbaijan. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan gained independence from the Soviet Union by 1991.

Peace could be achieved in the South Caucasus. This energy-producing region, which borders Russia, Europe and Turkey, is also riven with ethnic conflict and closed borders.

The anonymous U.S. officials confirmed that the Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev, and Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan will join Trump for the White House signing ceremony and talks.

The officials announced that they would sign a framework to create a "concrete path to peace" as well as to address a long-simmering issue of transit.

Azerbaijan wants a corridor of transport through Armenia to connect the majority of its territory with Nakhchivan, a bordering Azerbaijani region that is an ally of Baku.

The officials stated that under a carefully negotiated part of the documents which the leaders will sign this Friday, Armenia intends to grant the United States exclusive development rights for a prolonged period on a corridor for transit, known as the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) and named after Donald Trump.

Officials said that the route would be operated in accordance with Armenian law, and that the United States would sublease land to an infrastructure and management consortium.

One of the officials stated that "through commercial means, this will unlock the area and prevent further hostilities".

Officials said that the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents will sign documents asking for the dissolution the Minsk Group. The group has been co-chaired since 1992 by France, Russia, and the United States to mediate in the conflict.

Steve Witkoff, the U.S. Special Envoy to the region, visited in March. This was the first time that progress on the Armenian/Azerbaijan problem had been made. His team returned to the region several times in order to broker an agreement.

U.S. officials think that a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan may lead to negotiations about the inclusion of Azerbaijan in the Abraham Accords. These are the normalization agreements between Israel and four Muslim majority countries, which Trump mediated during his first term.

Trump is trying to portray himself as an international peacemaker during the first few months of his second tenure. The White House credited him for brokering a truce between Cambodia and Thailand, as well as sealing peace agreements between Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo and Pakistan and India.

Trump has had less success in ending the Russian war in Ukraine, and the conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.

The summit will be held on the day Trump gave Russian President Vladimir Putin a deadline to stop his invasion of Ukraine, or else face additional economic sanctions. (Reporting and editing by Ross Colvin, Lincoln Feast, and Steve Holland)

(source: Reuters)