Following the meeting between the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and US Vice President JD Vance, a document signing ceremony between the Republic of Armenia and the United States of America took place. Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and US Vice President JD Vance signed a joint statement on the completion of negotiations on the Agreement on Cooperation between the Government of the Republic of Armenia and the Government of the United States of America in the Field of Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy.
Nikol Pashinyan and JD Vance then made statements summarizing the results of the meeting.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, in particular, noted:
”Honorable Vice President J.D. Vance,
Esteemed Members of the U.S. Delegation,
Dear Colleagues,
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It is a great honor to host today the Vice President of the United States of America, J.D. Vance, and his delegation, who are on an official visit to Armenia. This visit is of truly historic and symbolic importance. This is the first visit by a US Vice President to the Republic of Armenia. It takes place in the context of unprecedented realities of establishing peace and stability in the South Caucasus and reflects the depth of the strong and strategic partnership forged between the Republic of Armenia and the United States of America.
Dear Mr. Vice President, our first meeting at the White House on February 7, 2025 had great importance for the events that subsequently unfolded.
Taking this opportunity, I would like to once again express the gratitude of the Government of the Republic of Armenia to the President of the United States of America, Mr. Donald Trump, and also to you, for organizing the Washington Peace Summit on August 8, 2025, through which we gave a strong boost to Armenia-US bilateral relations, and with the personal involvement of President Trump, we established peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
After the Washington Peace Summit, President Aliyev and I nominated President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize through a joint letter, and I have great hope that the President will rightfully receive this award in 2026.
Vice President J.D. Vance’s visit is a crucial step in institutionalizing peace and expanding the Armenia-US strategic partnership. I presented to Mr. Vance the positive processes underway in the South Caucasus, as well as the details of the discussions that took place a few days ago in Abu Dhabi between me and the President of Azerbaijan, which were aimed at potential new steps for strengthening peace between our countries.
On this occasion, I also reaffirmed Armenia’s commitment to supporting the peacekeeping mission of the US government, including the activities of the Board of Peace, the charter of which I had the honor of signing on January 22 this year, during the official ceremony in Davos.
I would also like to note that I have received and gladly accepted President Trump’s invitation to participate in the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace on February 19.
The Vice President and I have both underlined the importance of consistently implementing one of the most important achievements of the Washington Peace Summit, the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity project, in accordance with the framework for the implementation of the TRIPP project signed on January 13 this year between the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia and the US Secretary of State. We have reaffirmed that this project, in addition to the most serious peace dividends, will also have regional and global significance, developing unhindered communication between West and East.
We expressed our satisfaction with the preparatory works for the implementation of the project, as well as the progress of the feasibility studies that were launched a few days ago.
We also discussed with Mr. Vance the prospects for complete deblocking of the region – as essential guarantees of stability and peace in the South Caucasus. I believe that in this context, it is also of great importance to bring to its logical conclusion the ongoing dialogue in the Armenia-Turkey normalization process, including the opening of the Gyumri-Kars railway.
We also jointly underscored the significant achievements in bilateral relations, including in the fields of artificial intelligence and innovative technologies. I am pleased to note that the memorandum signed between Armenia and the United States on August 8 in the field of semiconductors and artificial intelligence will bring to life the megaproject of the company Firebird building an artificial intelligence plant and data center in Armenia.
In this regard, one should note the recent approval of the issuance of export permits for the next batch of super-powerful chips produced by NVIDIA, for exportation to Armenia.
I hope that the close and transparent cooperation established between Armenia and the United States in the high-tech sector will allow us to further develop and strengthen the mutually beneficial partnership between Armenian and US companies.
In addition, Vice President Vance and I signed today a Joint Statement on the Completion of Negotiations on the “1,2,3 Agreement” for Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation between the governments of the Republic of Armenia and the United States of America.
This agreement will open a new chapter in the deepening energy partnership between Armenia and the United States, and will contribute to the diversification of Armenia’s energy resources by implementing safe and innovative technologies.
I also expressed my gratitude for the long-standing support provided to Armenia by the United States in the field of nuclear security and expressed willingness to further develop sectoral cooperation in areas of greatest importance to both countries.
We have also made significant progress in the field of Armenia-US military and defense partnership. In continuation of the bilateral long-term security cooperation and the “Eagle Partner” military exercises ongoing for three consecutive years now, Armenia has acquired from the United States “V-BAT” unmanned aerial vehicles, the effectiveness of which has been proven through extensive use experience, and which will significantly contribute to the strengthening of our defense capabilities. I expressed hope that this transaction, implemented under the US Foreign Military Sales program, will serve as a basis for expanding our future cooperation.
We noted that Armenia and the United States are committed to developing a mutually beneficial partnership in securing the extraction and supply chains of critical minerals and rare earths.
Naturally, we also touched on institutional reforms in Armenia and the continuation of the long-standing support provided by the United States in this direction, in particular, matters of strengthening the state structures of the Republic of Armenia and developing their capacity.
In relation to the latter, I highlighted the support provided to Armenia for capacity development under the “Crossroads of Peace” program.
We both emphasized that relations between Armenia and the United States are stronger today than ever, and we expressed our commitment to further develop them for the benefit of our peoples.
Honorable Vice President;
I would like to once again welcome you, your wife, the esteemed Usha Vance, and your beautiful family: I say to you – welcome to Armenia, «Բարի գալուստ Հայաստան», and express our gratitude for your commitment to further developing the strong ties between Armenia and the United States.
Thank you!”
US Vice President JD Vance noted, ‘‘Thank you Mr. Prime Minister. It’s great to be here in Armenia and I am especially grateful that you described the second lady as the esteemed Usha Vance. … I think she is going to expect me to call her esteemed Usha Vance in the future. You created these expectations.
This is a beautiful country. A country that the President of the United States is very proud to partner with, the President of the United States is very proud to have great relationship with, and I know President Trump sends his best regards to you personally, but also to the people of Armenia.
And what President Trump and the Prime Minister have accomplished together is really visionary, peace is now made by cautious people, by people who are now too focused on the past, peace is made by people who are focused on the future. And because the Prime Minister made such a great progress, had such great relationship with both me and the President of the United States, we are not just making peace for Armenia, we are also creating real prosperity for Armenia and the United States together.
So much of the great economic cooperation that we are going to announce today would have been impossible without your leadership, without the peace you committed your country to, and without of course the President of the United States’s leadership. I am grateful for all of those things because really do believe that tonight marks a new beginning for Armenia and the United States and the partnership that our countries can have together.
Now I want to announce a few things, the Prime Minister announced a few of them, but I want to review what we have done here and what we will continue to work on together. So, first of all, he mentioned this incredible tech deal, the United States was proud to issue a number of export licenses for the sale of high powered Nvidia chips. What does it mean? It means new markets for American workers and for American businesses, but it also means greater prosperity for the People of Armenia. These are chips that simply do not exist in most countries of the world, they are now going to be developed in the data scanners using those chips are going to be built and in fact are already being built because of the Prime Minister’s leadership and we are very happy to partner on that. I mean great things for the American workers and I think great things for the people of Armenia as well.
We are also very proud to announce that our nations have completed negotiations a 123 Civic Nuclear Cooperation Agreement. Once that is completely set up, it will pave the way for the American and Armenian companies to strike deals on civil nuclear projects. That means up to 5 billion dollars in initial US exports plus an additional 4 billion in long term support through fuel and maintenance contracts.
This is a classic win-win for both Armenia and the United States of America. This means stronger energy security for my own country and I also think it means stronger energy security for Armenia, and it also will create a lot of new jobs back home in the United States. It means small modular reactors, American technologies will be coming to this country. Again, this is one of the few countries where we feel confident enough to invest at this level, to send this kind of technology and this is happening because of the Prime Minister’s leadership.
I am also very proud to talk about the TRIPP Enterprise Fund. I think hear or are familiar with TRIPP with the historic transformation that it’s going to bring to the regio. But let me say a couple of additional things. It is going to open up a whole new world of trade, transit and energy flows in this region of the world, and it will create unprecedented connections between Armenia and its neighbors. That’s great for the prosperity of the people of Armenia, but it is also important for enduring peace, because when you create this interconnected economies, energy sectors, and so forth, it means that this region can have an enduring peace. We don’t just want to make peace with the Prime Ministers and the President’s leadership, we also want to make sure that that peace endures, and that is something we are accomplishing here today.
A couple of other things I would like to announce. There is a lot, this is a busy agenda here and we are very proud of it. What will do the TRIPP Fund is that a lot of private capital is going to flow for building railroads, pipelines, and again, building the interconnectedness that will create real prosperity for the region and also allow the peace agreement to stick.
I also was very happy with the Prime Minister just a couple minutes ago to see some of the new drone technology that we will be selling to Armenia. Yes, President Trump knows very well, the very best way to ensure you have peace is to establish real deterrence, and the best way to establish real deterrence is with the best military technology in the world and the United States has that. And for the first time we are announcing a major sale of military technology, 11 million dollars in surveillance and drone technology to the Armenians and to our good friend Mr. Prime Minister. He is going to use that to secure his country and to make sure that the peace we are creating sticks. That means for the United States more jobs and more investment in our own defense technology sector.
So let me just close by saying that what’s happening today is truly historic. I am proud to be the first Vice President of the United States to visit this beautiful country, am very excited to see a little more tomorrow, I am excited about the dinner we are going to have and I know that the last thing standing between that dinner, I will try to speak very fast here, over the closing couple minutes. But this is the oldest Christian country in the entire world, a true bedrock of the Christian civilization and culture. And as a Christian myself, I know the meaning of this country to the entire world and to the religion that the Prime Minister and I share. So the people of Armenia and the great Prime Minister, I want to thank you for your partnership, President Trump is committed to this partnership and so I am. We are thrilled to take the next step. God bless you”.
The Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia and the Vice President of the United States of America answered the questions of the media representatives.
Question – Mr Prime Minister, can you let us know if in your conversations you discussed Iran and the situation in the region and what the goals and objectives would be of the United States and Armenia given the recent diplomatic efforts?
Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan – I am sure that you have already noticed from our statements that there is one goal at the core of cooperation between the United States and the Republic of Armenia, and that goal is peace and stability. And all our actions and cooperation with the United States are aimed at peace and stability. And I am convinced that this goal is achievable. We already see, I also had the opportunity to say in my opening remarks at the expanded-format meeting that it is very important to record that the peace that was declared, proclaimed on August 8, 2025, is already being expressed on the ground, in reality. And let me say that the cooperation between the United States and the Republic of Armenia is a peaceful cooperation, and it will always be so.
Question – I address my question to Mr. Vice President. Mr. Vice President, although you referred to the TRIPP project in your speech, I would like you to elaborate a little: how would you assess the progress at this point, how much investment does the United States expect or plan to make in this project, and what economic benefits does it expect from the project?
Vice President of the United States of America JD Vance – Well, in terms of the amount of investment, we have talked to a number of partners in the region, but also across the world, they are very interested in it. They think it’s a very fairly investment opportunity. We actually spent a fairly amount of time talking today about how we can make things go faster, the Prime Minister wants things to go as fast as possible, because again, this interconnectedness, economic development is good for prosperity, but it is also good for peace. The United States is certainly going to play a very positive and constructive role in this. But I don’t think that money is the issue. There is actually a lot of capital interested in this particular project, there are a lot of people across the world who think they can make a good return by investing in Armenia and investing in this TRIPP project.
The question is how we get the peace deal into a good next phase, how we keep the Prime Minister in a good place so that he can focus on the future. I know elections are coming up, we talked about that. But to the extent my endorsement does means anything, he certainly has it, because this is a guy who can build long-term partnership to make things like this stick. This has not happened overnight, but I think we have already made great progress in just months, since August 8.
Question – Mr. Vice President, would the US allow Iran limited uranium enrichment or whatsoever, what’s the redline in the negotiations?
Vice President of the United States of America JD Vance – Well, I think the President will make the ultimate determination about where we draw the red lines in the negotiations. If you ho back to the original negotiations that happened between us and the Iranians, the President was trying very very hard to strike a constructive deal that would be good for the United States, but frankly the entire Administration agreed that if the Iranians were smart enough to have made that agreement, it would have been good for them too.
We are obviously much more focused tonight on the issues that are related to the US-Armenia cooperation. But as where the President exactly wants to set red lines in the negotiations, as you guys know, he typically does that privately, he does not announce what he is going to do in the negotiations, because he thinks it can strand them. In private, I think he has a lot of good conversations with his team and with others the days and weeks to come, but with all respect to our friends from the media, I think the President will preserve decisional space for himself, and that means not revealing too many of his cards publicly.
Question – One more question on Iran negotiations. Has the violent crackdown of the protestors in Iran been part of those negotiations. Does the US want to push for any kind of human rights assurances to be part of the deal?
Vice President of the United States of America JD Vance – I think Mr. President said publicly that. It’s been very much part of the negotiations we have had. It’s one of the things that the President made a very strong demand is that, you know that the prisoners who were going to be executed, the crackdown was of course very brutal and violent. The President and the entire Administration said that we stand with the people of Iran, we stand with the right of peaceful protests across the world and of course the people who want to exercise their right in Iran. But absolutely, the President has made it part of the conversations, not just with Iran, but the peoples all across the region.
Question – Mr. Prime Minister, in your speech you mentioned what work has been done so far after the documents signed on August 8, and you also mentioned in general what directions we have expectations in the future. Please, give a general assessment of the current level of Armenia-US relations, the progress of the work being carried out, and what specific actions we can expect in the near future, thank you.
Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan – I think this scene emphasizes the level of Armenia-US relations. Today, the level of our relations is higher than ever, but it is very important that with the Vice President we emphasized the great potential for the further development of our relations.
In fact, yes, we are at the highest point today, but only the agenda that we mentioned in our speech, only the implementation of that agenda will expand the scope of our cooperation many times over. And this is very important. We have established a strategic partnership, but it is important to note that we can now demonstrate concrete expressions of military partnership that are tangible and visible.
And, of course, my special appreciation to the President of the United States, Donald Trump, for his personal contribution. But I have also thanked Vice President James D. Vance several times today, including in a personal conversation, for his personal contribution, because we know that the meeting that took place at the White House on February 7, 2025, and our very meaningful conversation and discussion, was of key importance for further events.
Moreover, I specially thanked Mr. Vice President, for what? Because at the time of that meeting, the White House was still in the process of transformation, I suppose that even Mr. Vice President had not yet fully settled into that working environment. And I appreciate very much that under those circumstances he considered that conversation important, and we calmly discussed for quite a long time and in detail the possibilities, the agenda that could lead to today’s point, and that deserves special appreciation.
And when I returned to Yerevan, the signals that the Vice President of the United States had already given the relevant instructions had reached Yerevan before me, and this, of course, is a unique manifestation of responsibility and professionalism, for which I, of course, expressed my words of appreciation and assurance of respect to Mr. Vice President.
Next, the spouse of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, Anna Hakobyan, hosted the wife of US Vice President James D. Vance, Usha Vance, at the presidential residence.
The Office to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia
