A significant moment in the long and complex process of fostering peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia was marked on July 10, when a bilateral meeting took place in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, between President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia. This was the first formal meeting between the two leaders since their brief encounter in May on the sidelines of the European Political Community summit in Albania. Unlike that informal exchange, the Abu Dhabi meeting was a full-scale negotiation involving both leaders and their official delegations, with a focused agenda that included finalizing a peace treaty, border delimitation, and the unblocking of regional communication routes, including the strategically significant Zangezur corridor.
President Aliyev and Prime Minister Pashinyan first met with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The following day, the Azerbaijani and Armenian delegations, along with their respective leaders, held formal talks, which were followed by a one-on-one meeting between President Aliyev and Prime Minister Pashinyan. Notably, the choice of Abu Dhabi as the venue was proposed by Azerbaijan, which sees the UAE as a neutral and unbiased actor with no vested interests in the process. The Emirates did not act as a mediator but rather offered their territory and goodwill to host the dialogue. This reflects Azerbaijan’s growing preference for a bilateral format, in contrast to previously used trilateral platforms led by external actors or institutions, which often yielded limited results due to competing geopolitical agendas.
The Abu Dhabi meeting can be viewed as a significant milestone in a peace process that began shortly after the Second Karabakh War, when Azerbaijan restored sovereignty over its internationally recognized territories after nearly 30 years of Armenian occupation. In 2022, Baku proposed five core principles for peace, which became the basis for negotiations. After nearly two years of discussions, both countries’ foreign ministries announced on March 13, 2025, that they had reached an agreement on the terms of the peace treaty, marking a major breakthrough.
Despite agreeing on the terms of the peace treaty, a number of obstacles remained before a final agreement could be signed. One such issue relates to the Constitution of Armenia, whose preamble references the 1990 Declaration of Independence, which asserts territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Therefore, Baku has called on Yerevan to take responsibility for amending its constitution to remove these claims. This is not without precedent. In 1998, similar demands were part of the Good Friday Agreement signed between British and Irish governments, which led to amendments in Ireland’s Constitution to renounce territorial claims to Northern Ireland. It’s worth noting that Prime Minister Pashinyan’s recent comments expressing the need for a new constitution that reflects the will of the Armenian people and current geopolitical realities offer a cautious sign of progress in this regard. Another obstacle is the continued symbolic existence of the OSCE Minsk Group, which was established in 1992 to help resolve the Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict. With the peace treaty signaling the end of that conflict, Azerbaijan sees no further relevance for this group and calls for its official dissolution.
In addition to the peace treaty, the opening of regional communication routes, particularly the Zangezur corridor, was also a central topic during the meeting. This corridor would link western Azerbaijan to the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic via Armenia and is seen as a vital component of the Middle Corridor and China’s Belt and Road Initiative, connecting East and West across Eurasia. Given its strategic and economic implications, the development of this route is likely to attract strong interest not only from Azerbaijan and Türkiye but also from other key actors such as China and the European Union. It is important to recall that Article 9 of the Trilateral Declaration signed by Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia on November 10, 2020, outlines Armenia’s commitment to facilitate this corridor. However, Armenia has so far declined to fulfill this obligation, citing various reasons. Encouragingly, following his June 2025 meeting with Prime Minister Pashinyan in Istanbul, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated that Armenia had recently demonstrated greater flexibility on the issue—an indication of cautious optimism in this regard.
The Armenia–Azerbaijan peace process is unfolding at a time when the South Caucasus is no longer a passive periphery but a strategic hinge between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Once viewed primarily through the lens of frozen conflicts, the region has now become central to a broader geopolitical contest over infrastructure, connectivity, and energy security. As global power centers shift and traditional alliances fracture, Azerbaijan is emerging as a vital corridor—linking Caspian energy resources to European markets, Central Asian trade to Black Sea ports, and Chinese logistics to Western supply chains. This growing strategic relevance has prompted both regional and global powers to recalibrate their approaches. The European Union increasingly sees the South Caucasus as a crucial alternative to Russian energy routes, particularly in light of the war in Ukraine and the ongoing sanctions regime against Moscow. Türkiye, a long-standing strategic partner and ally of Azerbaijan, is seeking to expand its influence in the region by actively promoting east–west connectivity through projects such as the Zangezur corridor and the Middle Corridor. Meanwhile, countries like Iran view the deepening Azerbaijan–Türkiye partnership and the Zangezur corridor with skepticism, fearing it could diminish Iran’s geostrategic importance and sideline its transit ambitions. The United States, although primarily focused on Ukraine and the Middle East, has recently reengaged in the South Caucasus by issuing public support for the Armenia–Azerbaijan peace process, signaling renewed interest in the region’s stability.
Speaking about the normalization process between Azerbaijan and Armenia, one must argue that, if signed, it can reshape the future geopolitics of the strategically important South Caucasus region. First, thanks to peace and the unblocking of communication lines, the South Caucasus might reach its full potential in terms of connectivity and energy transit, thereby bringing development and stability to the entire region and its neighborhood, including Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Secondly, peace with Azerbaijan will widen opportunities for Armenia to simultaneously conclude peace with Türkiye, thereby opening its border with a major market in the neighborhood and gaining further access to the EU, as it aspires to achieve European integration. Thirdly, sustainable peace between the parties can make the South Caucasus region less vulnerable to foreign intervention, as major and regional powers have long exploited the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict to pursue their own geopolitical ambitions. Russia is one such power that used to exploit this conflict in furtherance of its own interests. Nevertheless, Russia’s strategic leverage in the South Caucasus appears to have markedly eroded since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. While the vacuum created by Russia’s relative disengagement can be viewed as a positive outcome in terms of fostering sustainable peace in the region, it has also ignited geopolitical confrontation among other countries that are seeking to assert their influence in the region, including by exploiting the so-called “no war, no peace” situation. Therefore, bilateral engagement by Azerbaijan and Armenia would be the most beneficial scenario, as it reduces the possibility of intervention by outside parties and thereby facilitates the acceleration of the entire peace process.
As for the outcomes of the meeting, both Azerbaijan and Armenia issued statements following the five-hour dialogue, describing the talks as constructive and positive. Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that the parties agreed to continue result-oriented negotiations on a bilateral basis, reaffirming this format as the most effective. The leaders also assessed progress on border delimitation and instructed their respective commissions to continue the technical work. Additionally, both sides committed to further confidence-building measures. Although the peace treaty has not yet been finalized, the Abu Dhabi meeting represents a major step forward in the normalization process. It lays the groundwork for future engagements and brings both nations closer to a long-anticipated breakthrough: the signing of a peace agreement, the unblocking of regional corridors, and the achievement of lasting peace and cooperation in the South Caucasus. Such a future would replace confrontation with cooperation, isolation with connectivity, and uncertainty with shared development.
