Islamabad/Washington:
Pakistan welcomed an American peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan on Saturday to end decades with conflict in the southern Caucasus.
US President Donald Trump announced the agreement in the White House on Friday and said the two countries had committed to “stop all battles forever, open trade, travel and diplomatic relations and respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Pakistan’s Foreign Office said in a statement that the “historical moment” reflected “wisdom and sagacity” of Azerbaijan’s leadership in solving the long -term dispute. Islamabad also praised Trump’s role in “promoting conflict resolution and promoting peace across different regions of the world.”
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the deal marked “Dawn for a new era with peace, stability and cooperation in southern Caucasus” and congratulated Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and the Azerbaijani people. He also paid tribute to Washington’s “relief role” by ensuring a solution that could open “new opportunities for trade, connection and regional integration.”
Trump stood with Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan as the two leaders signed a “joint statement” that commits to ending hostilities and normalizing ties. The deal includes the creation of a transit corridor through Armenia connecting Azerbaijan with its exclusion of Nakhchivan. The United States will have development rights for the route that the White House has called the “Trump route for international peace and prosperity.”
Aliyev called the signing of “historically” and said he and Pashinyan jointly nominate Trump at the Nobel Peace Prize. Pashinyan described Accord as a “breakthrough” that would “open a new era” to the region that credited Trump as the “peace man” behind it.
The agreement follows decades of hostility between Christian Majority Armenia and Muslim majority Azerbaijan, who fought for two wars over the disputed Karabakh region. Azerbaijan restored the territory in an offensive from 2023 and triggered more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
Regional and international powers welcomed the agreement. Turkey paid tribute to “progress towards a lasting peace”, the European Union called it a way to “Sustainable Peace” in the Caucasus, and Britain praised the “bold steps” taken in Washington.
Iran, who has long opposed the Nakhchivan corridor over concern that it could limit his access to the Caucasus, also welcomed the deal, but warned against “negative consequences of foreign intervention” near its borders.
While the text of the agreement was completed in March, the signing was delayed by Bakus’s demand for Armenia to change its constitution to drop territorial claims over Karabakh. Pashinyan has promised a referendum in 2027 on constitutional changes, a step that remains politically disputed in Armenia.
An official in the White House who spoke on condition of anonymity said that Armenia’s gain at the agreement was “a huge strategic commercial partner, probably the most enormous and strategic in the history of the world: the United States,” adds that “the losers here are China, Russia and Iran.”
