“Thank you for your and [Azerbaijani] President Aliyev's joint letter advancing my nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize,” Trump said in a November 14 letter to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian publicized by the latter’s office on Monday. “I am deeply appreciative of your kind recognition, which inspires us to sustain our important mission.”
“As President of the United States, I remain committed to ending conflicts across the globe and to securing peace and prosperity for all people,” he wrote. “With your ongoing partnership, we will achieve the impossible.”
Trump also sent a similar letter to Aliyev which was reported by Azerbaijani state media over the weekend.
Pashinian and Aliyev announced their decision to jointly nominate Trump for the prestigious award during a joint news conference with him held after their August 8 talks at the White House. The talks resulted in the initialing of an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty. Baku has since continued to make the signing of the treaty conditional on a change of Armenia’s constitution, something which requires a nationwide referendum.
Also, Pashinian pledged to give the United States exclusive rights to a transit corridor through Armenia demanded by Azerbaijan. Practical modalities of this transit arrangement do not seem to have been worked out so far.
Despite these uncertainties, Trump has repeatedly claimed to have brokered an end to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. In September, the U.S. State Department again advised Americans not to travel to Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan because of what it called a lingering “potential for armed conflict” between the two South Caucasus countries.
In October, both Aliyev and Pashinian took part in a U.S.-led summit in Egypt aimed at ending the devastating war in Gaza. Speaking at the summit, Trump referred to Pashinian as Aliyev’s “compatriot” and said the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders now “like each other.”