US President Donald Trump is reportedly discussing bringing Azerbaijan and some Central Asian nations into the Abraham Accords, despite Azerbaijan’s already positive ties with Israel.
The Abraham Accords are a set of agreements normalising diplomatic relations between Israel and several Arab states, starting with the UAE and Bahrain in 2020, after US mediation. Since then, Sudan and Morocco have also agreed to normalise relations with Israel.
On Friday, Reuters reported that while Trump officials have named several potential new states to join the accords, the talks centered on Azerbaijan ‘are the most structured and serious’, with two sources alleging a deal could be reached within weeks.
However, three sources told Reuters that Trump considers a peace deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia a ‘precondition’ to joining the accords.
The two states ostensibly agreed to the terms of a peace deal on 13 March — yet, soon after, Azerbaijan issued its own preconditions to signing, halting further progress.
Despite this, on 19 July, Trump said the US had ‘worked magic’ in the peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan, saying ‘it’s pretty close if it’s not already done’. The comments came as Azerbaijani and Armenian officials continued to publicly disagree over how the unblocking of regional transport links could look.
More recently, in early August, multiple sources reportedly confirmed to DC correspondent Alex Raufoglu that ‘Armenia and Azerbaijan are poised to announce their intention for peace later this week in Washington’. Raufoglu wrote that Trump was expected to host both Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in the White House on 8 August.
Even if all preconditions are solved, there is still the question as to why Azerbaijan would want to join the accords, or what doing so would actually mean in practice, as the country has long had positive relations with Israel.
Baku has developed a strong alliance with Tel Aviv in recent years, which includes military cooperation and overlapping regional interests, particularly concerning forming a bulwark against Iran — Israel’s archenemy, and a country that Azerbaijan has always had a difficult relationship with.
With this in mind, Reuters has speculated that the expansion of the accords will be largely symbolic.
The State Department in response to a request for comment from Reuters only said that expanding the accords had been a key objective of Trump: ‘We are working to get more countries to join’, an unnamed US official reportedly said.
In turn, the Azerbaijani government declined to comment.
Nate Ostiller
