Keghart. Since the Azerbaijani victories in the Karabakh wars of 2020 and 2023, the two South Caucasus countries of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been engaged in largely one-sided talks for a couple of years. It seems that Baku got most of what it wanted in the newly signed Washington agreement: an “unimpeded” transit route from Azerbaijan to its western region of Nakhchivan, the call for the end of the OSCE Minsk Peace Process, and no mention of the displaced ethnic Karabakh Armenians, nor reference to the status of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).
By contrast, Armenia was desperate to not be further encroached upon territorially or even invaded in another major war. So, with a projected greater US corporate and government presence through TRIPP (so-called “Trump Route for International Peace and Security”) in the southern portion of Armenia, Yerevan has bought time to survive for another day, as a tiny land-locked state surrounded by more powerful authoritarian nationalist regimes. Trump, of course, not only gets a chance to make money for himself and large US corporations, he continues his driven egoistic pursuit of the glory of a Nobel Peace Prize. Meanwhile, the more than 100,000 displaced Karabakh Armenians are not even mentioned, let alone helped in any direct or significant way.
Iran is definitely unhappy at greater US involvement on Iran’s northern border and uneasy about extensive Turkish geopolitical ambitions in the region. Russia, once a dominant imperial power in the South Caucasus, both in Tsarist and communist eras, is completely bypassed in the Washington agreement and will continue to experience a significant decline in its presence in the region. Turkey’s historic pan-Turkish eastward ambitions towards Central Asia are significantly further fostered.
If Armenia survives over the next decade with no further loss of military personnel or territory due to incremental border encroachments or war, the tripartite agreement may be considered a minor win also for Yerevan. Meanwhile, Ruben Vardanyan, a visionary philanthropist, former Karabakh government official, and my valued Armenian friend, is still a vulnerable political prisoner in a bleak Baku jail, along with other prisoners of conscience.