Azerbaijan sits in one of the world’s roughest neighborhoods, squeezed between Russia to the north and Iran to the south. 

Over the past few years, the small, secular but Muslim-majority nation has faced tensions with both Russia and Iran. Relations with Moscow cooled after Russian air defenses accidentally downed an Azerbaijani airliner last December, killing 38. Meanwhile, repeated Iranian threats—including support for the Husseiniyyun, a radical Shia proxy operating terrorist cells in the country and large-scale military exercises on the border—have kept the nation on edge.

Yet Azerbaijan is more than a country at the mercy of large neighbors. It also offers a rare strategic opening for Washington with immediate payoffs in trade, energy security, and regional deterrence.

Baku controls a key stretch of the Middle Corridor—the only land route from Europe to Asia that bypasses both Russia and Iran. It already supplies natural gas to Europe and has helped ease tensions between Jerusalem and Ankara. It has become a bridge to Central Asia, a region the United States has recently prioritized as it seeks alternatives to Chinese rare earths.

President Donald Trump has recently moved to capitalize on Azerbaijan’s rise. This year, Washington replaced Russia as lead mediator in the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace talks, leading to an August 8 peace summit, one of the largest US foreign policy achievements in the South Caucasus. Referred to as the “Washington Declaration” in political circles, the summit led to concrete pledges to resolve the most sensitive issues preventing normalization. The question now is whether Washington will treat this as a standalone diplomatic win or the foundation of a broader strategy.

One early test will be the speed of the implementation of a transport corridor through Armenia’s Syunik........

© The National Interest