YEREVAN, Armenia (MetaWorld Media) — Vice President JD Vance landed in Armenia on Monday — a country that no sitting U.S. vice president or president has visited before — as the Trump administration looks to advance a U.S.-brokered deal aimed at ending a decades-long conflict with Azerbaijan.
The vice president and his wife, Usha, were greeted with a red carpet, an honor guard, and a delegation of officials. Armenian and American flags hung from poles as the delegation drove to the vice president’s meeting, with some demonstrators on the side of the road, including one with a sign that read, “Does Trump support Devils?”
Vance is meeting Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who signed a deal at the White House in August intended to reopen key transportation routes with Azerbaijan. At that meeting, the countries signed agreements reaffirming their commitment to signing a peace treaty. The text of the treaty was initialed by foreign ministers, indicating preliminary approval, but the leaders have yet to sign the treaty and parliaments have yet to ratify it.
Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev are both on President Donald Trump’s new Board of Peace. Originally intended to oversee the Gaza ceasefire plan, the board has expanded its mission. Trump plans to convene the first meeting of the board in Washington this month.
The deal involves creating a major transit corridor, dubbed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, connecting Azerbaijan and its Nakhchivan exclave, challenging issues over control of the Karabakh region.
The land bridge had been contentious in resolving a conflict that lasted for nearly four decades over Karabakh, with a recent resurgence in violence causing significant shifts in control and demographics.
