For many years, the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict was perceived as an example of an irreconcilable confrontation, often cited to support arguments about the supposed impossibility of a political settlement. The Second Karabakh War and the subsequent turbulence in international relations have further reinforced this pessimism, while international engagement has largely remained confined to conflict-management practices rather than efforts aimed at achieving sustainable peace.
Nevertheless, in recent years the parties have managed to move beyond the previous logic by engaging directly in a bilateral format. The meeting between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Abu Dhabi on 10 July 2025, the trilateral summit in Washington on 8 August 2025, at which a Joint Declaration was adopted, have marked important milestones in shaping a genuine peace agenda. These developments have demonstrated that even amid global instability, pragmatic agreements and joint actions are possible, although until recently they seemed unattainable. They also underscore that the normalization process can primarily rely on the political will of Baku and Yerevan themselves.1
The Legacy of the Conflict
Not only within the international community and expert circles, but also among societies of Armenia and Azerbaijan, decades of conflict marked by layers of trauma, references to historical events and competing narratives, heavy losses, and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people on both sides have reinforced skepticism. This has produced deeply entrenched stereotypes in how the two societies perceive one another. Such perceptions have also penetrated the thinking of politicians, experts, historians, and cultural figures in both countries.
From this perspective, a realistic conclusion follows: the conflict itself can be resolved through the adoption of mutually agreed documents, the signing of agreements, and the assumption of reciprocal commitments at the political level, that is, at the level of the two states. Ethnic reconciliation, however, requires time, the sustained development of a substantive peace agenda and its continuous enrichment with meaningful content, as well as consistent steps toward one another.
Peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan implies a departure from the identities shaped during the conflict period, when both sides invested significant effort in the dehumanization of the other. This dehumanization, together with the perception of the conflict as something inherent and as the primary lens through which the historical relationship between the two peoples is viewed, led to the neglect of the shared cultural heritage that Armenians and Azerbaijanis possess, reflecting centuries of close coexistence and inevitable mutual influences.
All of this also began to be interpreted through a conflict-centered lens, being viewed as the heritage of one side allegedly “appropriated” by the other. The same identity framework is reflected in chronic distrust toward the other side and in the belief that it is the other party that is unwilling to move toward peace.
In humanitarian and historical terms, peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan would mark the end of the bloodiest regional conflict, one with a complex prehistory and manifestations dating back to the early twentieth century. Over this period, hundreds of thousands of Armenians and Azerbaijanis became victims of the conflict; many cities and villages were destroyed, and vast numbers of people were displaced.
The result was the concentration of peoples within titular nation-states Armenians in Armenia and Azerbaijanis in Azerbaijan countries that inherited their borders from the former Soviet republics. Mutual recognition of each other’s territorial integrity within the borders of the Soviet republics, combined with the consolidation of national states, represents a difficult but ultimately workable solution for ending a prolonged and bloody conflict. This approach echoes other conflict cases that likewise contain multiple underlying components, including ethnic, religious, historical, imperial, and geopolitical factors.
The Region’s “Mental Geography”
The Armenian–Azerbaijani conflict has also produced a peculiar mental geography of the region. For Azerbaijan to reach its exclave, the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, it has often been “shorter” to travel hundreds of kilometers through Iran rather than to cover the mere 42 kilometers across Armenia. Likewise, traveling from Yerevan to the Turkish city of Iğdır, located only about 50 kilometers away, requires covering at least 480 kilometers through Georgia and Türkiye.
Closed borders not only between Armenia and Azerbaijan but also between Armenia and Türkiye are another anomalous legacy of the conflict. This situation has created a stark discrepancy between the region’s perceived mental geography and its physical geography.
The Regional Dimension
Beyond geography, the Armenian–Azerbaijani conflict has also shaped the geopolitical configuration of the South Caucasus, within which alliances with external actors formed. This dynamic led to the fragmentation of the region, the emergence of opposing geopolitical axes, and the reinforcement of a spiral of confrontation.
The conflict helped preserve Russia’s dominance in the region, including its military presence on the territory of Armenia, and deepened Armenia’s dependence on Russia not only in military terms but also politically and economically. At the same time, the close Armenian–Russian relationship created additional tensions in Armenia’s relations with Georgia.
In the sphere of international transport connectivity, the presence of a Russia-dependent Armenia to the south of Georgia effectively created vulnerabilities for international transit routes passing through Georgian territory routes capable of serving as a bridge connecting resource-rich Central Asia with Europe. As a result, the countries of the region developed their transport and logistical networks along a single corridor and were largely deprived of viable alternatives.
Thus, the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan unfolded across humanitarian, historical, economic, and geopolitical dimensions, significantly affecting living conditions in both countries, shaping the broader regional environment, and influencing relations both among regional states and with actors beyond the region.
From Interaction to Cooperation
Peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, together with Armenian-Turkish normalization and the reopening of regional communications, would reshape the structure and character of the region. On the one hand, these developments could reduce external influence in the South Caucasus; on the other, they would strengthen the agency and sovereignty of the region’s states.
From an economic perspective, the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan created numerous challenges. Over the years of confrontation, both countries became global leaders in defense spending relative to GDP, while repeated escalations forced them to devote enormous resources to rebuilding damaged infrastructure and supporting displaced populations.
For the border regions of both countries, the disruption of long-standing cross-border ties, including trade, shared use of water resources, and other forms of local interaction, led to a significant deterioration in economic conditions and increased vulnerability. Recurrent escalations further undermined quality of life and became a major factor in the depopulation of border villages. In this context, the regions most affected by the conflict, such as Tavush in Armenia or the Azerbaijani exclave of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, are likely to become the primary beneficiaries of peace.
At the macroeconomic level, peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan would open opportunities for the development of bilateral and multilateral economic ties and create alternative options for faster and cheaper transit of goods across the territories of both countries. Initial steps in this direction have already demonstrated the economic benefits of peace: the third shipment of gasoline purchased from Azerbaijan and ongoing discussions about potential exports from Armenia indicate that the business community is interested in such cooperation. Once peace is formally consolidated, this process is likely to accelerate.
Azerbaijan could become an important source of hydrocarbon supplies for Armenia, both directly and indirectly, through its transit role energy flows from Central Asia. This, in turn, could help diversify Armenia’s energy market and potentially lower prices for gas and petroleum products for end consumers. At the same time, Armenia represents the shortest geographic route connecting Azerbaijan with Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, as well as linking Azerbaijan with Türkiye.
For this reason, the economic dimension is closely connected with the issue of regional communications, including railways and highways, as well as pipelines, electricity transmission lines, fiber-optic cables, and other infrastructure networks. A key component of this agenda is TRIPP, a road linking mainland Azerbaijan with the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic through Armenia’s Syunik Province. With the involvement of the United States, this project could become an important element of a broader Eurasian connectivity corridor linking Central Asia and China through the South Caucasus with Türkiye, the Middle East, and Europe.
It is also important to note that the achievement of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan could create favorable conditions for the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations, including the possible opening of borders. This, in turn, would open new economic and connectivity opportunities for the entire region, providing routes that are more convenient, faster, and safer than those currently in use.
Armenian-Turkish normalization would also represent a major symbolic development at the regional level, bringing to a close one of the longest-standing and most difficult conflicts in modern history. At the same time, it would open new opportunities for Armenia’s development while allowing Türkiye to improve its relations with Western countries and strengthen its links with Central Asia and the Indian Ocean basin as a result of the unblocking of regional communications.
Instead of a Conclusion
Peace and security in the region would mean that, alongside expanding opportunities for Armenia and Azerbaijan, international transit routes crossing the region would become more reliable, making it possible to connect not only the countries of the region but also Central Asia with the world’s second-largest economy the EU market, which requires stable supplies of energy resources, raw materials, and other goods.
From a geopolitical perspective, peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan would entail a transformation of the regional architecture of security and cooperation. For both countries, this would require reconsidering established perceptions formed under conditions of prolonged external influence and the legacy of conflict whether regarding regional security, the role of external actors, or the possibility of sustainable coexistence among the states and societies of the South Caucasus.
For Armenia, peace with Azerbaijan and the normalization of relations with Türkiye could lead to a reduction in the role of external military-political presence in the region and to a gradual transition from a logic of deterrence to mechanisms of mutual trust, economic cooperation, infrastructural connectivity, and shared regional responsibility for security. In this context, the form and scale of external military presence could evolve depending on new agreements. This may also contribute to greater regional stability and deeper economic and transport integration between Armenia and its neighboring countries.
For Azerbaijan, the peace agenda marks the beginning of a new historical period with new opportunities for recovery and development. At the same time, the peace agenda creates conditions for Baku to deepen its integration within the international organizations of which Azerbaijan is a member.
The peace agenda pursued by Azerbaijan and Armenia seeks to achieve its objectives in accordance with the logic of a “win-win” strategy, in which each side gains dividends and additional opportunities. At the same time, the obstacles that exist and will continue to exist on the path toward peace cannot be ignored. These challenges stem from both objective and subjective factors. Overcoming them and counteracting external influence will require the political will of governments, the expanded interaction and cooperation, continuous dialogue, patience, resilience, and the support of societies.
At present, various formats of engagement are being established across the entire spectrum of interaction, within which substantive and pragmatic discussions are taking place about planned steps, as well as assessments of risks and opportunities. Representatives of civil society are also participating in these discussions, contributing to the peace agenda and proposing different models and visions of the future for our countries and the wider region.
Areg Kochinyan - Coordinator of the Peace Bridge Initiative (Armenia), President of the analytical center Armenian Council
Farhad Mammadov - Coordinator of the Peace Bridge Initiative (Azerbaijan), Director of the South Caucasus Research Center
- The authors of the article are the coordinators of the “Peace Bridge” initiative, Areg Kochinyan and Farhad Mammadov.
“Peace Bridge” is an initiative of civil society representatives from Armenia and Azerbaijan, implemented with the support of the governments of both countries. The initiative aims to create conditions for direct bilateral dialogue between experts, media representatives, non-governmental organizations, and other stakeholders from Armenia and Azerbaijan.
One of the areas of activity of the “Peace Bridge” initiative is the preparation of joint articles and research on key issues of the bilateral agenda.
The publication appears in Armenia in Armenian and Russian on the website of the Factor TV information agency, and in Azerbaijan in Azerbaijani and Russian on the websites of the 1news.az and milli.az news agencies.
The English version of this article is published on the website of the conflict transformation journal “Caucasus Edition.”
The article presents the authors’ ideas and approaches.
The views expressed may not necessarily reflect the position of the respective media platform. ↩︎