How Armenia-Azerbaijan peace could reshape Israel’s regional ties
A White House ceremony on August 8, 2025, brought together Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, and US President Donald Trump to sign a joint declaration aimed at establishing peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Central to the package is a plan to create the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP), designed to link Azerbaijan with its exclave Nakhichevan through southern Armenian territory.
The deal is said to transfer exclusive development rights over the route to US interests, while Armenia fully retains jurisdiction along this passage. While the summit outcome looks more like a real estate deal, it is nevertheless the first tangible infrastructure step in a fragile and protracted peace process. All three leaders gain diplomatic wins, though broader questions of lasting peace, stability, and prosperity remain.
This article examines how the deal could serve as an early test of whether economic connectivity can reinforce peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and how that, in turn, might shape Israel’s relations with both countries.
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A step toward connectivity
For Armenia, this is less a grand bargain than an initial step: a single road where a network was imagined as part of its “Crossroads of Peace” project. TRIPP should therefore be seen as the opening piece of a larger puzzle. Today, most trade between the Caspian and Black Seas flows through Georgia, along a route that passes just south of the Russia-controlled South Ossetia region, a geographic vulnerability that makes diversification a strategic necessity.
Additional Armenia links would strengthen the “Middle Corridor” to Europe, offering alternative routes less exposed to geopolitical chokepoints. For the US, Israel, and their partners, this diversification holds obvious appeal, as it dilutes Iranian, Chinese, and Russian influence while bolstering regional resilience and opening new channels for commercial and tactical engagement.
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan has separately clarified that no third party will control or oversee the segment running through Armenia, and that, through TRIPP, Armenia and Azerbaijan will gain reciprocal access to each other’s infrastructure.
Risks and regional sensitivities
Iran has predictably bristled at the prospect of TRIPP, as it perceives a US presence near its borders and Israel’s ties with Azerbaijan as direct security threats. While it may show its displeasure through military drills, border posturing, or diplomatic pressure on Yerevan, these moves may not necessarily derail implementation, but they could raise costs and complicate sequencing.
Moscow is sensitive to any connectivity architecture that sidelines its desired role or reduces its leverage over regional transit. As TRIPP moves forward, Russia may attempt to obstruct or reframe the project, using political pressure, information campaigns, and its on-the-ground presence to influence access arrangements and reassert its role as indispensable broker.
As for Turkey, Ankara publicly ties full Armenian normalization to the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace track and has welcomed the east-west link resulting from the August 8 summit. Delivery will hinge on Turkish politics: elections, nationalism, or economic downturns could delay border openings and trade upgrades.
The potential impact on Israeli relations
The deepening Azerbaijan-Israel relationship is well-documented, from energy cooperation to military technology transfers. Israel has long sourced a large share of its crude oil from Azerbaijan via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, and Azerbaijan’s state oil and gas company SOCAR recently acquired a 10 percent stake in Israel’s offshore Tamar gas field, knitting both countries closer together. Israel has also been a major arms supplier to Azerbaijan, accounting for 69 percent of Baku’s arms imports between 2016 and 2020.
With peace, the pace of offensive procurements could cool, but intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, air-defense, cyber, and training ties are likely to persist because they also serve both countries’ Iran calculus. When TRIPP is implemented, connectivity through Armenia instead of via Iran would make trade between Israel and Azerbaijan easier to de-risk.
By contrast, Armenia-Israel ties remain polite but thin. Armenia only opened an embassy in Tel Aviv in September 2020, while Israel accredits a non-resident ambassador to Armenia. Bilateral trade is relatively modest, with Israel exporting about US$10.25 million to Armenia and Armenia exporting US $9.3 million to Israel in 2024.
The two countries have faced recurring strains, including Israel’s longstanding avoidance of recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Relations have also been complicated by lingering resentment over Israeli arms sales to Azerbaijan during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which prompted Armenia to recall its ambassador in October 2020. Diplomatic representation was restored in 2022, but tensions resurfaced in June 2024 when Armenia recognized Palestine, prompting Israel to summon the Armenian ambassador for what the Israeli foreign ministry described as a “stern reprimanding.” This stands in sharp contrast to the exceptional warmth it continues to show Azerbaijan, despite the latter having recognized Palestine since 1992.
With peace, Jerusalem can keep its tight partnership with Baku while finally opening a practical, non-zero-sum reset with Yerevan. Reduced tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan also lowers the risk to critical regional infrastructure such as the BTC pipeline. But even ahead of a formal settlement, it is in Israel’s clear interest to strengthen ties with Armenia, not only to broaden its diplomatic reach in the South Caucasus, but also to establish a constructive channel with a country that hosts an influential diaspora and is deepening partnerships with France, India, and the European Union (EU), as well as to create additional options for managing regional security risks related to Iran.
One constructive step would be for Israel to publicly endorse TRIPP and affirm Armenia’s sovereignty over it, while also voicing support for the “Crossroads of Peace” initiative, backing Armenia’s connectivity and diversification without touching on the most sensitive historical and political questions. Another pragmatic path would be to enhance cooperation in non-political sectors with direct domestic impact, such as agri-tech, water, health, and innovation. And then there is the prospect recently expressed by US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff that Armenia (and Azerbaijan) could potentially soon join the Abraham Accords—an idea that, while ambitious, could offer a forward-looking framework for improved rapprochement.
Joining the Abraham Accords
For Azerbaijan, joining the Accords has clear benefits in terms of international prestige and isn’t far-fetched given its quasi-alliance with Israel, but the payoff for Jerusalem is small: relations are already normalized, so accession would be symbolic—useful for branding but unlikely to change the substance of cooperation. It could even dilute the Accords’ original purpose of breaking down barriers with states historically hostile towards, but strategically important to, Israel.
By contrast, an Armenia track would better fit the Accords’ normalization logic and offer higher strategic upside, opening a structured channel with a state historically cautious toward Israel, expanding Israel’s reach in the South Caucasus, adding a vector for countering Iran, and creating a platform for cooperation and connectivity while signaling a less one-sided regional posture. Armenia’s path would be more complex, but not inconceivable. With no substantive bilateral agenda, it would require strong incentives and sustained convincing, particularly given the friction such a move would create with Iran, which would likely view any Armenian accession to the Accords with unease.
One possibility is an observer or partner status, fostered through a mechanism for countries that share the Accords’ commitment to peace and normalization but fall outside its original scope, which primarily draws in Arab nations. The Director of the N7 Initiative, a partnership between the Atlantic Council and Jeffrey M. Talpins Foundation, has also previously argued that the Accords should evolve from a set of bilateral deals into a strategic mini-lateral architecture with issue-based cooperation and sustained dialogue among partners, including on Iran and Gaza, rather than remain a mere symbolic gesture. An Armenia pathway maps neatly onto that template: plug Yerevan into modular tracks on connectivity, energy transit, and Iran risk-management, expanding the network’s integrative value without forcing premature political alignment.
Lessons across regions
If Armenia’s peace with Azerbaijan holds, it could offer an imperfect but instructive model for other protracted conflicts. Pashinyan’s willingness to prioritize state survival over territorial claims, while politically costly, reflects the kind of strategic recalibration often necessary for peace. For Israel and its Arab partners, the South Caucasus example reinforces the principle that sometimes a durable peace requires reframing, or even relinquishing, long-held national narratives.
TRIPP alone will not transform the South Caucasus. But if embedded in a broader vision of multi-vector connectivity, it could become a catalyst for deeper integration, linking not just Armenia and Azerbaijan, but also Israel, Turkey, Central Asia, and Europe in a shared economic and strategic space. That would require imagination, trust-building, and the political will to move beyond the minimalism of the August 8 agreements.
Moreover, South Caucasus corridor initiatives often stall due to financing gaps, governance failures, and political interference. TRIPP can evade the usual pitfalls if paired with sound policy design. For this, Armenia’s sovereignty must be crystal clear, financing should be diversified, and delivery should start with quick wins, such as border-crossing upgrades, before undertaking larger projects. Embedding strong anti-corruption frameworks, such as transparent procurement, independent oversight, and robust compliance standards, will also be crucial to maintaining the project’s credibility.
If this “road” evolves into a genuine “crossroads,” the United States and Israel could each leverage their strong regional partnerships—Washington with Yerevan and Jerusalem with Baku—while jointly opening a practical framework that engages both Armenia and Azerbaijan, step by step, in the Accords ecosystem. That future depends less on ceremony than on disciplined implementation and tangible near-term benefits for Armenians and Azerbaijanis.
Sheila Paylan is a human rights lawyer and senior legal consultant with the United Nations.
* The views expressed herein are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations.
Further reading
Mon, Jun 9, 2025
Armenia’s ‘crossroads’ offers the US and Israel a rare opportunity
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Clinching peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan offers the US and Israel a rare chance to tilt the balance of power in the South Caucuses.
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Russia’s imperial approach toward Armenia and Azerbaijan has backfired
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The Trump administration deserves credit for the recent diplomatic breakthrough, but it was also made possible by the Kremlin’s disregard for the sovereignty of its neighbors.
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Joining the Accords could benefit Baku and Astana, while also helping Israel and the US strengthen engagement with the Turkic world.
Image: U.S. President Donald Trump holds the hands of Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev and Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan as they shake hands between each other during a trilateral signing event, at the White House, in Washington, D.C., August 8, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque