OPINION:
The Aug. 8 declaration signed in Washington between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, with President Trump as witness, is an excruciating compromise. Brokered and catalyzed through hands-on engagement by the Trump administration, it averts war, promises new regional transport links and, for the moment, halts Azerbaijan’s creeping pressure on Armenia’s southern Syunik province. Yet it does so at a cost that must be acknowledged, managed and compensated.
Armenia has ceded to Azerbaijan something that no country with an exclave has ever obtained in history: unimpeded land access through the sovereign territory of another state. Imagine a special road granting the United States unimpeded passage to Alaska through Canada, with Canadian authorities reduced to a token presence. This is the magnitude of what has been placed on the table.
No known modern case exists in which a country with an exclave (as Alaska is, for example) has been granted a physically extraterritorial land route free from the host state’s legal and customs control.
The declaration speaks of “unimpeded connectivity” between mainland Azerbaijan and its Nakhchivan exclave “on the basis of respect for the sovereignty” of and “reciprocal benefits” for Armenia. These clauses are the fig leaves that make the deal survivable for Yerevan. They mean, on paper, that Armenian law applies, Armenian customs officers are present and that there is no extraterritorial strip carved out of Syunik.
However, the text also leaves vast space for interpretation. Given Baku’s record of maximalist readings of past agreements, those ambiguities are potential fault lines.
The first and most urgent reality is that the exact details of the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” remain undisclosed. We do not know its precise location, who will build and operate it, what security arrangements will be in place or how “unimpeded” will be interpreted in practice.
This is where Armenia’s sovereignty could be eroded in the shadows. A corridor effectively controlled by Azerbaijan would be a strategic disaster for Armenia, splitting the country’s southern lifeline and giving Baku a permanent foothold deep in Armenian territory.
Moreover, the deal does not undo the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) in 2023, when the entire ethnic Armenian population of more than 100,000 was driven out under blockade and threat of force. It does not provide for the return of dozens of political prisoners held in Azerbaijani jails, many of them former officials of Artsakh, legitimate leaders with whom the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe has engaged in negotiations for decades, humanitarian workers or civilians swept up in the postwar purge.
It does not commit Baku to pay reparations for destroyed homes, stolen property or the deliberate starvation of a civilian population. Although it mentions nothing about a right of return for the Armenians expelled from Karabakh, any genuine reconciliation must include at least a recognition of that principle, even if its implementation is conditioned on security arrangements in the future.
These omissions are not minor details.
The release of prisoners would be an obvious starting point, a concrete act that would cost Baku little but carry immense symbolic weight. Even a symbolic acknowledgment of the displaced Karabakh Armenians’ right to go home one day would signal that this deal is not the final word on their fate.
Since the 2020 war, Azerbaijan has held the military upper hand, backed by Turkey and buoyed by its considerable gas revenue. The fall of Artsakh in 2023 was a trauma and a warning. Syunik, with its strategic position linking Armenia to Iran and blocking a direct Turkey-Azerbaijan land bridge, was clearly next on Baku’s wish list. By agreeing to a transport link under the guise of mutual benefit, Yerevan has bought time and potentially forestalled another round of conflict.
However, this requires active management. The “reciprocal benefits” clause must not be an empty promise. Armenia should be pressing for guaranteed access to Azerbaijani rail and road networks, integration into regional trade routes, and participation in any customs revenue generated by the new link. Infrastructure projects that connect Armenia more deeply to Georgia, Iran and beyond should be accelerated, reducing dependence on any single transit path. Washington should stand by Armenia in tangible ways: security guarantees, military aid calibrated to defensive needs and political backing in international forums.
This would be a strategic investment in an ancient Christian civilization that sits at the crossroads of Russia, Turkey and Iran and whose survival as a sovereign democracy is in America’s interest.
The Aug. 8 declaration closes one chapter but leaves many others unwritten. If the next months bring visible goodwill, such as the freeing of detainees, the wounds could slowly begin to scar over.
History offers no perfect parallel to what Armenia has just agreed to. States with exclaves have negotiated transit rights, but never quite like this. For Armenians, the question is whether this concession will be the keystone of a durable peace.
The U.S., where I had the honor of serving as ambassador, must stand by a fellow democracy that has taken a grave risk in hopes of a better future.
• Grigor Hovhannissian is a former ambassador to the United States and former deputy foreign minister of Armenia.
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