Within the past four decades the two former soviet republics have fought two major wars—and countless skirmishes.
President Donald Trump hosted the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House on Aug. 8, where they signed joint declarations ending decades of conflict and paving the way for a transit corridor through the South Caucasus region.
Dubbed the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP), the planned corridor will traverse southern Armenia just north of the Iranian border.
Here’s the background to the long-running conflict—and what the new transport corridor could mean.
4 Decades of Conflict
Since before the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Azerbaijan and Armenia, two small states in the South Caucasus region, have remained implacable enemies.
The people of Azerbaijan are ethnically Turkic and have historically adhered to Shiite Islam. Armenians are an Indo-European people, the vast majority of whom are Christian.
Within the past four decades the two former soviet republics have fought two major wars—and countless skirmishes—over the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh, known as Artsakh in Armenian.
While Nagorno-Karabakh has long been internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, it was, until recently, populated mostly by ethnic Armenians.
Following a war that lasted from 1988 to 1994, Armenia captured Nagorno-Karabakh from Turkey-supported Azerbaijan, leading to the expulsion of the region’s Azerbaijani inhabitants.
Armenia remained in control of Nagorno-Karabakh until 2020, when Azerbaijan, with Turkish support, retook most of the region in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.
The six-week conflict, in which thousands of soldiers from both sides were killed, ended with a ceasefire brokered by Russia, which has historically viewed the South Caucasus as its backyard.
In 2023, Azerbaijan staged a 24-hour offensive that brought Nagorno-Karabakh under its full control, prompting a mass exodus of ethnic Armenians from the region to next-door Armenia.
Since then, the two countries have sought to reach a final settlement aimed at ending hostilities once and for all and demarcating their 620-mile shared border.
In March, Armenia and Azerbaijan both announced that they had agreed on the text of a possible peace deal.
However, Baku refused to sign any agreement until Armenia changes its constitution to remove language that refers to the unification between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.
By Adam Morrow
