WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump hosted Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the White House on 8 August, where the two leaders signed a U.S.-brokered declaration aimed at ending more than three decades of conflict rooted in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute. Under the accord, Armenia and Azerbaijan pledged to cease hostilities permanently, establish diplomatic relations, open their borders to commerce and travel, and respect each other’s territorial integrity. The agreement grants the United States exclusive development rights over a 20-mile ‘Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity,’ a multimodal corridor running through southern Armenia that would link Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave and onward to Turkey. Washington simultaneously lifted long-standing restrictions on defence cooperation with Baku and signed separate energy, trade and technology agreements with both countries. Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the United Kingdom said the parties are “one step” from a final treaty, noting that Armenia must still amend its constitution to remove references to Nagorno-Karabakh. Prime Minister Pashinyan has called for a referendum on the change, but no date has been set. The European Union, Turkey and Iran welcomed the breakthrough, while Russia—long the region’s primary power broker—said it preferred solutions shaped by neighbouring states. Analysts caution that unresolved questions over customs, security and Armenian constitutional reform could yet stall implementation, but they also see the pact and planned corridor as potentially reshaping trade routes and eroding Moscow’s influence in the South Caucasus.