US Vice President JD Vance arrived in Azerbaijan on February 10 as he continues a trip to the Caucasus aimed at shoring up support for a US-brokered peace deal with Armenia and to push a strategic transit corridor Washington sees as central to reshaping trade, energy, and influence in the region.
Vance made the short flight from Yerevan to the Azerbaijani capital of Baku following two days of meetings with Armenian officials where he signed an agreement to cooperate in the civil nuclear sector that will allow up to $5 billion in initial US exports to Armenia, plus an additional $4 billion in longer-term fuel and maintenance contracts.
The vice president, the first sitting US vice president to ever visit Armenia, called the trip to Armenia "very productive" and said he's "optimistic about the peace deal based on where we are compared to where we were just a few months ago."
In June, Armenia signed a US-brokered a deal with Azerbaijan aiming to end more than 40 years of conflict over the Karabakh region.
The centerpiece of the agreement is a proposed 43-kilometer road-and-rail corridor, to be called the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), that would run through Armenia and link Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave while opening a new East-West trade artery bypassing Russia and Iran.
Armenia and Azerbaijan had been locked in conflict since the late 1980s over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but long controlled by ethnic Armenian separatists.
In September 2023, Azerbaijan retook full control of Karabakh following a military offensive.
Last summer, leaders from the two countries agreed on a major deal -- brokered by Washington -- aimed at ending decades of conflict, including two full-scale wars.
The agreement gives the United States leasing rights to develop the transit corridor, which would run through southern Armenian territory along the border with Iran.
The corridor would eventually include a rail line, oil and gas lines, and fiberoptic lines, allowing for the movement of goods and eventually people.
Vance said "a lot of investment that's going to come to Armenia because of some of the good deals that we've struck."
Azerbaijani media reported Vance was holding a brief meeting with President Ilham Aliyev in Baku to start the second leg of the trip.
Ahead of Vance's arrival, Aliyev said the visit is part of "a new era in bilateral relations which is very promising."
The peace agreement has boosted Washington's position in the region at a time when Russia's influence has faced setbacks in Baku and Yerevan. Vance's arrival also coincides with other regional developments -- such as US-Iran tensions amid ongoing peace talks in Oman and a new US-backed critical minerals initiative -- that analysts say has placed the South Caucasus at an unlikely nexus for US policy priorities.
