US President Donald Trump hosted Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the White House for the signing of a peace accord aimed at ending decades of hostility between the two countries.

Trump said on Friday the agreement would open a new era of peace, commerce, and cooperation.

“I want to congratulate these two great people, Prime Minister Pashinyan and President Aliyev, for coming to Washington to sign this momentous joint declaration,” he said.

“The countries of Armenia and Azerbaijan are committing to stop all fighting forever; open up commerce, travel and diplomatic relations; and respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Aliyev called the deal a step toward “long-lasting peace” in the Caucasus.

“There should be no doubts and no suspicions that any of the sides would step back. If any of us — Prime Minister Pashinyan or myself — had in mind to step back, we wouldn’t have come here,” he said.

The agreement establishes a transportation corridor linking the two countries, with exclusive development rights granted to the United States.

Dubbed the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity,” the corridor will see American companies invest in infrastructure projects.

Trump said the US would also sign separate bilateral deals with both nations on energy, trade, and technology, including artificial intelligence, and would lift restrictions on security coordination with Azerbaijan Republic imposed in 1992.

Aliyev welcomed the move.

“I’m very grateful to the president that he lifted the restrictions that had been imposed on Azerbaijan back in 1992,” he said.

The two former Soviet republics have fought repeated wars over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region within Azerbaijan Republic’s borders but historically populated by ethnic Armenians.

Azerbaijan Republic regained full control of the territory in a 2023 military offensive that forced most ethnic Armenians to flee.

While Washington frames the accord as a diplomatic breakthrough, many Armenians see it as legitimizing forced displacement.

Rights groups say the 2023 campaign included a siege that restricted food supplies, amounting to the use of starvation as a weapon of war.

“Erasing Nagorno-Karabakh is not peace,” said Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America.

“Normalizing ethnic cleansing is not peace.”

Azerbaijan Republic denies targeting civilians and says Armenians could have remained in their homes under its rule.