WASHINGTON: US Vice President JD Vance will travel to Armenia and Azerbaijan in February, President Donald Trump said on Friday, with the intention to “build on” recent peace efforts.
Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a US-brokered agreement in August to end a decades-long conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Azerbaijan most recently took over in 2023.
“I want to thank President Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Prime Minister Pashinyan of Armenia for honoring the Peace Agreement we signed last August,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“In February, Vice President Vance will travel to both Countries to build on our Peace efforts, and advance the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity,” he said, referring to a transit corridor created as part of the agreement.
The corridor through Armenia connects Azerbaijan, which is to its east, to its Nakhchivan exclave to the west.
The agreement gives the United States development rights to the corridor.
Trump said the United States would “strengthen our strategic partnership with Azerbaijan, a beautiful Agreement for Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation with Armenia” and organize “Deals for our Great Semiconductor Makers.”
He also mentioned “the sale of Made in the USA. Defense Equipment, such as body armor and boats, and more, to Azerbaijan.”
The US State Department said this month Armenia would give the United States a nearly three-quarters stake in the development of the corridor, an agreement Secretary of State Marco Rubio hailed as a “model for the world.”
Rubio met with Azerbaijan’s foreign minister this week and commended the country’s recent shipments of fuel to Armenia as evidence of a “continued commitment to the historic peace deal,” the State Department said.
Trump says Vance to visit Armenia and Azerbaijan in February
https://arab.news/65uuq
Trump says Vance to visit Armenia and Azerbaijan in February
- Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a US brokered agreement in August to end a decades-long conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region
Trump insists he struck Iran on his own terms
- “We are now a nation divided between those who want to fight wars for Israel and those who just want peace and to be able to afford their bills and health insurance,” Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X.
- Rubio himself doubled down on Tuesday after meeting with US House and Senate members, while insisting that “No, I told you this had to happen anyway”
WASHINGTON, United States: President Donald Trump and his team scrambled Tuesday to reclaim the narrative on why he decided to attack Iran, after his top diplomat suggested the US struck only after learning of an imminent Israeli strike.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio alarmed Democrats — who say only Congress can declare war — as well as many of Trump’s MAGA supporters on Monday when he said: “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.”
“We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio told reporters.
Administration officials quickly backpedalled, insisting Trump authorized the strikes because Tehran was not seriously negotiating an accord on limiting its nuclear ambitions, and the United States needed to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities.
“No, Marco Rubio Didn’t Claim That Israel Dragged Trump into War with Iran,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted Tuesday on X.
At an Oval Office meeting later with Germany’s chancellor, Trump went further, saying that “Based on the way the negotiation was going, I think they (Iran) were going to attack first. And I didn’t want that to happen.”
“So, if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.”
- Had to happen? -
Rubio himself doubled down on Tuesday after meeting with US House and Senate members, while insisting that “No, I told you this had to happen anyway.”
“The president made a decision. The decision he made was that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide... behind this ability to conduct an attack.”
Critics seized on the muddied messaging to accuse Trump of precipitating the country into a war without a clear rationale, without informing Congress — and without a clear idea of how it might end.
They noted that just two weeks ago, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed Trump again in Washington to take a hard line, in their seventh meeting since Trump’s return to power last year.
Some Republican allies rallied behind the president, with Senator Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, insisting that “No one pushes or drags Donald Trump anywhere.”
“He acts in the vital national security interest of the United States,” Cotton told the “Fox & Friends” morning show.
But as crucial US midterm elections approach that could see Republicans lose their congressional majority, Trump risks shedding supporters who had welcomed his pledge to end foreign military interventions.
“We are now a nation divided between those who want to fight wars for Israel and those who just want peace and to be able to afford their bills and health insurance,” Marjorie Taylor Greene, a top former Trump ally and a major figure in the populist and isolationist hard right, posted on X.
