Vance, the first sitting U.S. Vice President to visit Armenia, is on a mission to advance a U.S.-brokered deal aimed at ending a decades-long conflict with Azerbaijan. The Trump administration's efforts are centered around a peace treaty, which has already been initialed by foreign ministers, indicating preliminary approval. However, the leaders have yet to sign the treaty, and parliaments have yet to ratify it. This deal, known as the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, aims to create a major transit corridor connecting Azerbaijan and its autonomous Nakhchivan exclave, separated by a 32-kilometer-wide patch of Armenian territory. The land bridge has been a significant obstacle in resolving the conflict over the Karabakh region, known internationally as Nagorno-Karabakh. The region has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since 1994. A six-week war in 2020 resulted in Azerbaijan regaining control of parts of the region and the surrounding areas. In September 2023, Azerbaijan launched a blitz that forced the separatist authorities to capitulate, leading to the majority of its 120,000 Armenian residents fleeing to Armenia. The visit comes after Vance spent four days in Milan at the Winter Olympics with his family and plans to travel to Azerbaijan on Tuesday. Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev are both on President Donald Trump’s new Board of Peace, which was originally envisioned to oversee the Gaza ceasefire plan but has since expanded in size and ambition. Trump plans to convene the first meeting of the board in Washington this month.
