It was like a Happy Ending of a dramatic movie and to a bitter era of death, suffering families and lost opportunities for tourism, when Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev signed a historic peace deal on Friday at the White House in front of the smiling star of this public show, the President of the United States, Donald J Trump.
Nobel Peace Prize for President Trump
Both Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev praised Trump for his role in helping to end the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. They said they would nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Ahead of this signing, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet announced that he had nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize for de-escalating a border conflict between Cambodia and Thailand.
On August 1, Trump lowered the U.S. tariff for Cambodia from 25% to 19%. It waits to be seen if this number will go down more after Manet’s nomination of the US president.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nominated Trump for the prize in July after U.S. President Donald Trump declared his intent in February for the United States to take over administrative control of the Gaza Strip, redeveloping the region into a resort town with a 5-Star Trump Resort, while relocating the population elsewhere.
Trump himself had often praised himself, urging that his diplomatic efforts would earn him the Nobel Peace Prize.
At the center of the deal is the establishment of a trade and transit corridor through the South Caucasus, which is to be named after Trump.
While Azerbaijan and Armenia are both located in the Caucasus region, they have a complex political relationship, and the border between the two countries is closed. However, both countries offer unique and compelling tourist attractions. Many travelers would likely choose to visit both countries, often as part of a larger Caucasus tour that also includes Georgia, the home country of the UN -Tourism Secretary General.
Zurab Pololikashvili, the outgoing Secretary-General of UN-Tourism, a native of Georgia posted his photo showing him with the Azerbaijan and Armenian leaders and Trump in the same gallery on X, saying:
Both countries (Armenia & Azerbajian) blessed with extraordinary culture, history, and natural beauty, they now have the chance to open their doors to travel, cultural exchange, and shared prosperity. This is more than diplomacy; it’s a decisive step toward healing, connection, and a brighter future for the entire region—a milestone not just for Armenia and Azerbaijan, but a shining example for the whole world. Together, let us work to ensure tourism between Armenia and Azerbaijan thrives. Gratitude to President Trump for making this breakthrough possible!
Tours that could combine travel to Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia would offer a mix of cultural and historical attractions, as well as opportunities to explore the region’s natural beauty.
Azerbaijan’s per capita income is below that of Its Neighboring Countries, Armenia and Georgia, even though neither of these neighbors has oil or gas Reserves.
A blogger traveling through Nagorno-Karabakh summarized his experience last month.
What I saw just outside Baku, the largest city in Azerbaijan, was astounding:
Hezbollah flags are flying openly in Nardaran, a town just 15 miles away from the center of Baku. Indeed, some parts of the country could be the TV double for Beirut or Baghdad, not just Berlin or Brussels. A little further on, I visited mountain villages without electricity or running water, an astounding juxtaposition to the tourist areas of Baku. Such deprivation is more shocking given Azerbaijan’s vast hydrocarbon wealth. Azerbaijan receives tens of billions of dollars each year through its partnership with BP and Russia’s Lukoil, as well as by pumping oil from the Islamic Republic of Iran in a swap scheme.
True, there are both Christians and Jews in Azerbaijan living alongside the majority Muslim population, just as there are Muslims and Jews in Armenia, living alongside its majority Christian population. There is, however, a significant difference.
In Armenia, religious diversity is organic; in Azerbaijan, churches, synagogues, and various spokesmen for the communities are little more than living museum exhibits. Azerbaijani Christian priests must say the right thing, lest they find themselves in prison or worse.
Nagorno-Karabakh was a predominantly Christian-populated region for over 1,300 years.
Even under Persian domination in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries, it remained Christian as Muslim rulers allowed the Christians to maintain their language, churches, and religion.
The Ottoman Empire tried to invade Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh after their early 20th-century independence as a second and final chapter to the Armenian Genocide.
The Armenians rebuffed the Ottoman (and Azeri) attacks, but they were no match for the Soviet Union, which subsumed the entirety of the Caucasus. Joseph Stalin then awarded Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan, not because it was Azeri populated, but rather because it was not. His goal in the region?
Gerrymander and create a jigsaw puzzle that would make each of the nominally ethnic republics dependent upon Moscow. Still, even then, Nagorno-Karabakh was an autonomous oblast.
There was a further irony: While Azerbaijan tried to relocate Azeris into the region, few had roots in the area, and so they returned to the Caspian shore.
As the Soviet Union collapsed, Nagorno-Karabakh’s residents petitioned for independence, as was their constitutional prerogative. A subsequent referendum found 99% support. Azerbaijani nationalists led pogroms in Baku and then sought to encircle and starve Nagorno-Karabakh to drive the Armenians out. They did not succeed in 1991, but they did in 2023.
In the years since, Azerbaijan has dynamited churches, razed graveyards, and sandblasted centuries-old inscriptions.
The issue was never Armenia’s presence in Putin’s orbit. Armenia has unequivocally shifted its focus towards the West.
Aliyev’s father was a member of the Central Committee of the Soviet Union and the head of Azerbaijan’s KGB; culturally, Aliyev and Putin grew up in the same social and cultural milieu.
The problem is Aliyev’s claim that all of Armenia is his. Armenians recognize what Azerbaijanis fail to acknowledge: that there is no genuine land dispute — there is an Azeri dispute about indigenous Christians existing in the heart of the Caucasus.
Azerbaijan can be a lovely place to visit as a tourist, but it can be Hell on earth for those forced to live there, especially if they hold sincere religious beliefs that they wish to practice freely.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have now signed a peace agreement in the presence of US President Donald Trump, marking the end of decades of conflict.
Who is the winner? Trump, Putin, or Iran
The winner at this moment is US President Trump, just days before he is set to meet Russia’s President Putin in Alaska. The deal between the two former Soviet republics strikes a geopolitical blow to Russia. Russia’s influence in the region has drastically weakened in the past several years, mainly because of the country’s invasion and war against Ukraine.
“Today we are writing a great new history,” Azerbaijani President Aliyev said as he addressed journalists at the White House, alongside Trump and Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan. Aliyev thanked Trump for bringing “peace” to the Caucasus region.
Armenia’s Pashinyan said the deal represented “opening a chapter of peace,” calling it a success “for our countries and our region.” He also commended Trump for his “legacy as a statesman and the peacemaker.”
Trump said all three of them had an “extensive” conversation and had signed “voluminous documents” related to a peace deal.
Iran however already vowed to block Trump-brokered Caucasus corridor ‘with or without Russia’
“Mister Trump thinks the Caucasus is a piece of real estate he can lease for 99 years,” Velayati told IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News, referring to the route included in Friday’s US-brokered Armenia–Azerbaijan peace deal.”
Ali Akbar Velayati is a senior adviser to Iran’s leader Khamene.
Tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan emerged in the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani region populated mainly by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Ethnic Armenians from this region had to escape their home and found refuge in western countries, including France and the United States.
Azerbaijan took back complete control of the region in 2023 in a military offensive, prompting almost all of the territory’s remaining 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
Speaking on Friday, Trump stated that the two countries had committed to ceasing hostilities, opening up diplomatic relations, and respecting each other’s territorial integrity. The US president also said he was lifting restrictions on US military cooperation with Azerbaijan.
The Trump Corridor
But at the center of the deal is the establishment of a trade and transit corridor through the South Caucasus, which is to be named after Trump.
