Azerbaijan has ended all restrictions on the trade of goods with Armenia, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said during a press conference with his Kazakh counterpart Kassym Jomart-Tokayev in Astana on Tuesday. Trade between the two countries has been nonexistent in the decades following their independence from the Soviet Union.
Speaking with Jomart-Tokayev, Aliyev said that a shipment of goods — an unspecified amount of Kazakh grain — had already been sent to Armenia.
‘I believe this is a clear indication that peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia exists not only on paper but also in practice’, Aliyev said.
The news was welcomed in Armenia, said Nazeli Baghdasaryan, the press secretary of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
‘This step is important in opening regional [transit links], strengthening mutual confidence, and institutionalising peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in line with the agreements reached in Washington’, she wrote on Facebook.
Later, Armenian Economy Minister Gevorg Papoyan said the wheat was being delivered from the Kazakh city of Aktau across the Caspian Sea to Baku, where it would be then be transferred via Georgian Railways to Armenia.
‘'Peace has been confirmed’, Papoyan wrote.
The announcement comes as Azerbaijan and Armenia have taken unprecedented steps towards peace in 2025.
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During the same press conference on Tuesday, Aliyev said, ‘a new era of peace has begun between Azerbaijan and Armenia’.
In August, Aliyev and Pashinyan held a historic meeting in Washington, hosted by US President Donald Trump, during which a peace deal was initialled, but not signed.
As part of the ongoing peace process, the two countries have been working to normalise relations and open their long-closed borders for trade and other regional connectivity links.
One of the key elements of the peace agreement is the establishment of the Trump Route (also known as the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, or TRIPP), which is a project to create a transit route connecting Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan, through Armenian territory.
Aliyev also addressed the Trump Route in his comments at Tuesday’s press conference, saying the route would be open by the end of 2028. He referred to it as the ‘Zangezur corridor’, however, a term that Armenia has continued to protest, arguing that it implies territorial claims on Armenia’s southern Syunik Province.
Yousef Bardouka
