For the three countries of the South Caucasus this year has been a time of unprecedented and unexpected developments.  For both Armenia and Azerbaijan, a dramatic diplomatic breakthrough has ushered in a long overdue degree of optimism.  Some five years after a devastating war in 2020 and over two years since Azerbaijan militarily captured the Nagorno Karabakh enclave and forcibly drove out the Armenian population there, both sides have attained startling success in bilateral negotiations.

Yet from a broader regional perspective, these positive developments between Armenia and Azerbaijan were sadly missing in neighbouring Georgia.  After years of hard-fought gains in democratic reform, the current Georgian government has steadfastly squandered and even overturned those gains.  And following an escalating crackdown on dissent, the Georgia’s government has only deepened its authoritarian position, blatantly defying and repressing its own population by moving further away from Europe and adopting a confrontational stance toward the West.

A shifting centre of gravity in the South Caucasus

Against that backdrop, the centre of gravity for regional stability has shifted.  With Georgia no longer the leader in democratisation and reform, the positive momentum of post-war diplomacy between Armenia and Azerbaijan offers the primary hope for the future of the South Caucasus.

But the real question and concern is the sustainability of the unprecedented détente between Armenia and Azerbaijan.  After initial talks between the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders in Abu Dhabi in July 2025, a preliminary agreement was reached on both the text of a new draft bilateral peace treaty.  The two sides also forged a compromise over the terms of an ambitious accord on connectivity, with plans for the restoration of road and rail transit through southern Armenia.

The Washington “peace summit”

And it was those agreements that paved the way for the Trump Administration to bring the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders together for a White House “peace summit”.  That August 2025 ceremony resulted in an initialing of a bilateral peace treaty and the signing of a new American-backed connectivity agreement.  That latter agreement, immodestly termed the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” or TRIPP, is the more significant breakthrough, however, for several reasons.

First, Armenia benefits from the restoration of road and rail through its new role as a transit state.  This only helps to further overcome the ever-present threat of isolation of landlocked Armenia.  And with additional elements of the TRIPP agreement, going beyond road and railway connections to include energy and digital links, it also addresses years of Armenian over-dependence on Russia.

A second important dividend from TRIPP is rooted in the strategic significance of economic inter-dependence as the most effective way to restore deterrence, changing the calculus of renewed hostilities by imposing a new consideration and a higher cost for Azerbaijan, thereby lessening the danger and lowering the risk of war.

And third, the geopolitical ramifications from this agreement reflects a seismic shift in the region, driven by the sidelining of Russia and the marginalisation of Iran.  Such a move is not without risk, however.  For Armenia, which is still hosting a Russian military base, any direct confrontation with Russia is fraught with a danger of a Russian response.  At the same time, Armenia is a member of the Russian-dominated Eurasian Economic Union (EaEU) and given the context of the TRIPP route in terms of external borders, trade and tariffs, Moscow holds a degree of leverage.  Nevertheless, Russia remains distracted by its failed invasion of Ukraine and at least in the short term has not reacted to these developments, at least not yet.

Deeper concerns over the “day after”

Despite the demonstrable change in the conflict narrative and threatening posture of both Armenia and Azerbaijan, genuine concerns over the “day after” of this breakthrough linger.  For one, even the bilateral peace treaty reflects a more punitive unilateral imposition of terms on Armenia by Azerbaijan.  This not only tends to reward or even legitimise Azerbaijan’s use of force and validates Azerbaijan’s military success in the 2020 war and its seizure of Nagorno Karabakh in 2023.  It is also peace treaty that does little to address the fundamental causes of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

But it is actually the sporadic demonstrations of Azerbaijani aggression that continue to erode these gains, threatening to undermine confidence and promote distrust.  This is most evident in the repeated statements from Azerbaijan threatening Armenia with dubious territorial demands as well as from the human cost of the conflict — the continued imprisonment of Karabakh Armenian detainees and prisoners of war.  This posture is largely defined by a context of domestic politics, however, with authoritarian Azerbaijan’s Aliyev family dynasty in need of conflict in order to distract its own population from the lack of democracy and the entrenched corruption of the Aliyev family.

Yet there has been demonstrable progress, especially over the past few months.  Bilateral talks on border demarcation have resumed, including unprecedented visits to each country, and negotiations, albeit with American partners, have also made progress over the details of the TRIPP project.

Perhaps more startling, however, was the recent unilateral move by Azerbaijan to allow the transit of wheat to Armenia from Russia and Kazakhstan through Azerbaijani territory.  This was then followed by initial talks allowing for potential Armenian imports of oil and gas from Azerbaijan.  These developments not only contribute to an atmosphere more conducive to stability but further add tangible and practical benefits to each side from economic inter-dependence and thereby bolstering deterrence.

Thus, the danger is less from Armenia and Azerbaijan themselves, and more from external threats.  More specifically, the vulnerability of this momentum is rooted less in the diverging interests of Armenia and Azerbaijan but is driven by a likely Russian resurgence as Moscow will seek to restore its power and position in the region.   

Such a looming threat from a vindictive Russia also means that neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan has the luxury of time.  This pressure, to move further and faster to anchor post-war agreements to greater resilience, also challenges the West to do more to transform the agreements into an irreversible framework of regional connectivity and inter-dependence.  Only then can resilience be attained and greater stability secured.

Richard Giragosian is the director of the Regional Studies Center (RSC), an independent think-tank in Armenia.