Trump inserts himself into the South Caucasus
Is President Trump truly the "peacemaker" he claims to be, boasting of resolving half a dozen conflicts around the world in just seven months? That is for the Nobel Committee to decide. In the Indo-Pakistani conflict, New Delhi denied any American mediation, and fighting resumed in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo despite the peace agreement signed in June in Washington by Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
The August 8 draft agreement between President Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, reached alongside Trump, looks different. At first glance, it is a striking diplomatic success in a conflict that has pitted two countries in the South Caucasus against each other for 35 years and has already led to two wars. Multiple mediation attempts – led by Moscow, Brussels and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe – failed. The dispute appeared unsolvable in this notoriously complex post-Soviet region. Enter Trump and his envoy, former real estate magnate Steve Witkoff, and suddenly a breakthrough was achieved.
Russia and Iran the major losers
In reality, the Trump team did not start from scratch. At the initiative of Aliyev and Pashinyan, Azerbaijan and Armenia had engaged in a promising bilateral dialogue for nearly two years, without the burdensome patronage of Russian, Turkish or Iranian powers. They took advantage of several factors that profoundly altered the regional political context: the full-scale war in Ukraine, the weakening influence of Russia and Iran – both preoccupied with other priorities – and the emerging roles of new actors like Turkey and China. This confluence of factors created a unique situation in the history of Armenia and Azerbaijan: both countries ultimately managed to keep Russia at arm's length.
In March, Yerevan and Baku reached an agreement to normalize their relations. In July, Aliyev and Pashinyan met in Abu Dhabi as their teams worked on a peace agreement. This was Trump's stroke of genius, inserting himself into a positive dynamic already underway, but to which he managed to give a decisive push.
The intervention at this stage by the United States – an actor free of historical baggage and considerable economic clout – proved beneficial. The next step is to finalize what is still just a draft agreement, which has not yet been signed by both parties. The much-discussed "TRIPP" (Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity), a corridor whose construction is expected to end the isolation of the Azerbaijani region of Nakhchivan, exists only on paper. Russia and Iran, the main losers in this process, could try to spoil the party. For now, though, Trump can congratulate himself, at little cost, even as the two biggest conflicts he has promised to resolve, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, remain stubbornly resistant to his "peacemaking" skills.
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