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Unconfirmed report: White House to host Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders [1]

['Aigerim Turgunbaeva']

Date: 2025-08

US President Donald Trump is reportedly going to host Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev at the White House on August 8 to try to settle the remaining differences between Yerevan and Baku. (Photo: whitehouse.gov)

US President Donald Trump may host the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan on August 8 in an effort to break deadlocked negotiations to end the two countries’ nearly 40-year conflict, according to reports circulating in Washington.

Alex Raufolglu, a Washington, DC-based Azerbaijani-American blogger who specializes in Eurasian-area affairs, first reported that officials in Yerevan and Baku were “poised to announce their intention for peace later this week in Washington.” Citing multiple sources, Raufoglu indicated that Trump would meet with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev separately at the White House, then the trio would “make a joint announcement together.”

An Armenian government statement declined to either confirm or deny “the information spread in the mass media and social networks” about the potential White House visit. Official sources in Azerbaijan did not immediately comment on the report.

At the same time, an Armenian Foreign Ministry statement accused Azerbaijani forces along the border of opening “fire on an excavator carrying out construction work” on August 4 in the Syunik Region.

The possible White House initiative to settle the remaining differences between Yerevan and Baku would be consistent with recent reports of heavy US involvement in the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process. The two countries announced in March that a peace agreement was ready for signing. But Azerbaijani officials then set several preconditions that they insisted must be fulfilled before a signing ceremony could take place.

One of the preconditions established by Baku is believed to be an amendment to Armenia’s constitution that unequivocally recognizes Azerbaijan’s sovereignty over the contested Nagorno-Karabakh territory, which Azerbaijani forces reconquered in 2023. Another requirement is thought to be the establishment of a land corridor that enables an unimpeded connection across Armenian territory for Azerbaijani citizens, connecting Azerbaijan proper and the Nakhchivan exclave.

Negotiations reportedly are ongoing for the opening of a corridor under American management. The plan has been dubbed the “Trump Bridge.”

US elected officials close to Trump have been telegraphing in recent days that a peace-process breakthrough was pending. US Senator Steve Daines, for example, published a commentary in the Washington Post in late July predicting that the White House was “on the cusp” of facilitating the finalization of the peace agreement. Meanwhile, Joe Wilson, a Republican US representative from South Carolina, tweeted on August 4 that “there has never been a peacemaker President like Donald Trump. … He deserves the Nobel Peace Prize!!!!”

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[1] Url: https://eurasianet.org/unconfirmed-report-white-house-to-host-armenian-and-azerbaijani-leaders

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