- Title: TIMELINE: Key moments in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict ahead of Trump meeting
- Date: 8th August 2025
- Summary: Azerbaijan began talks with ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh on Thursday (September 21) after the breakaway region was forced into a surrender that stoked calls for the resignation in Armenia of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Wednesday said his "iron fist" had consigned the idea of a separate ethnic Armenian Karabakh to history.
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- Keywords: Armenia Azerbaijan Karabakh timeline war
- Location: VARIOUS LOCATIONS
- City: VARIOUS LOCATIONS
- Country: Azerbaijan
- Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace,Europe
- Reuters ID: LVA00R270229032025RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to welcome the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to the White House on Friday (August 8). The meeting will culminate in the signing of a peace framework that includes exclusive U.S. development rights to a strategic transit corridor through the South Caucasus, officials told Reuters.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at odds since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh - an Azerbaijani region that had a mostly ethnic-Armenian population - broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
A peace deal could transform the South Caucasus, an energy-producing region neighboring Russia, Europe, Turkey and Iran that is criss-crossed by oil and gas pipelines but riven by closed borders and longstanding ethnic conflicts.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan are to join Trump at the White House for talks and the signing ceremony, the U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
They are to sign a framework aimed at reaching a "concrete pathway to peace" and addressing a long-simmering transit issue, the officials said.
Progress on the Armenian-Azerbaijan issue began in March when U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff visited the region. Members of his team made several subsequent trips there to help broker the agreement.
The White House summit comes as Trump has tried to present himself as a global peacemaker in the first months of his second term. The White House has credited him with brokering a ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand and sealing peace deals between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Pakistan and India.
Trump has been less successful in ending Russia's war in Ukraine and the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The summit will take place on the same day that Trump set as a deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to steps to halt his invasion of Ukraine or face further economic sanctions. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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