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Azerbaijan and Armenia to Sign Peace Deal, White House Says
Residents in vehicles attempt to leave the city of Stepanakert following a military operation conducted by Azerbaijani armed forces in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region inhabited by ethnic Armenians, Sept. 24, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/David Ghahramanyan
Azerbaijan and Armenia will sign an initial US-brokered peace agreement during a meeting with US President Donald Trump on Friday, a deal aimed at boosting economic ties between the two countries after decades of conflict, the White House said.
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told reporters that Trump would sign separate deals with both Armenia and Azerbaijan on energy, technology, economic cooperation, border security, infrastructure, and trade. No further details were provided.
Trump will meet separately with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the White House, beginning at 2:30 pm (1830 GMT), with a trilateral meeting set for 4:15 pm (2015 GMT), the White House said.
The agreement includes exclusive US development rights to a strategic transit corridor through the South Caucasus, dubbed the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity.”
US officials said the agreement was hammered out during repeated visits to the region and would provide a basis for working toward a full normalization between the countries.
Neither the joint declaration due to be signed nor the separate bilateral agreements with the US were released.
It was not immediately clear how the deal being signed on Friday would address thorny issues such as the demarcation of shared borders and Baku’s demand for a change in Yerevan’s constitution, which includes a reference to a 1989 call for the reunification of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, then an autonomous region within Soviet Azerbaijan.
Officials briefing reporters skirted over the Nagorno-Karabakh issue.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at odds since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh – a mountainous 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. Azerbaijan took back full control of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023 in a military offensive, prompting almost all of the territory’s remaining 100,000 Armenians to flee to Armenia.
US officials highlighted the opportunities presented for both countries and US investors through creation of the new transit corridor, which will allow greater exports of energy and other resources.
“What’s going to happen here with the Trump route is, this isn’t charity. This is a highly investable entity,” said one senior administration official, adding that at least nine companies had in recent days expressed interest in operating the transit corridor, including three US firms.
‘SAFER AND MORE PROSPEROUS’
Under a carefully negotiated section of the documents the leaders will sign on Friday, Armenia plans to award the US exclusive special development rights for an extended period on a transit corridor that will be named the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, and known by the acronym TRIPP, the officials told Reuters this week.
Trump would sign a directive to set up a negotiating team to work out details for how to operate the corridor, with initial commercial negotiations to begin next week, one of the officials said.
“The losers here are China, Russia, and Iran. The winners here are the West,” one of the officials said. “Both countries that have been in conflict for 35 years … are looking and talking about full peace with each other tomorrow.”
“It’s being done, not through force, but through commercial partnership … with these two countries,” the official said. “The joint declaration that we’re going to see signed today is the first-ever peace declaration signed bilaterally by the two countries since the end of the Cold War.”
Trump has tried to present himself as a global peacemaker in the first months of his second term. The White House credits 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. He also is intensifying efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, eyeing a possible meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin as early as next week.
Senior administration officials told reporters the agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan marked the first end to several frozen conflicts on Russia’s periphery since the end of the Cold War and said it would send a powerful signal to the entire region.
“This isn’t just about Armenia. It’s not just about Azerbaijan. It’s about the entire region, and they know that that region is going to be safer and more prosperous with President Trump,” a senior administration official said.
A peace deal could transform the South Caucasus, an energy-producing region neighboring Russia, Europe, Turkey, and Iran that is crisscrossed by oil and gas pipelines but riven by closed borders and longstanding ethnic conflicts.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.