On August 8, meetings took place in Washington, D.C. between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev with U.S. President Donald Trump; as a result, a number of bilateral and trilateral documents were signed; in this regard, the outcomes of the Washington meetings for Armenia and Azerbaijan should be viewed both from the perspective of developing bilateral relations with the United States and from the standpoint of the Armenian-Azerbaijani normalization process; it was clear that for Azerbaijan, the Washington negotiations were primarily important in terms of raising relations with the United States to a new level; it is no coincidence that during the Trump–Pashinyan–Aliyev meeting, the Azerbaijani president in his remarks placed particular emphasis on the progress achieved in bilateral relations; immediately after Trump’s election, Aliyev had spoken about the need to elevate Azerbaijani–American relations to a strategic level; in Washington, Azerbaijan and the United States launched the process of signing a Strategic Partnership Charter between the two countries; Trump also lifted Section 907 of the “Freedom Support Act,” which reopened the way for defense and other forms of cooperation between Baku and Washington; it is important to note that without this trilateral meeting and the agreements reached on the normalization process, such progress in the Azerbaijani–American bilateral agenda would likely have been difficult to achieve; during the Washington negotiations, three bilateral memoranda were also signed between Armenia and the United States concerning cooperation on the Armenian Government’s “Crossroads of Peace” initiative, as well as in the fields of energy cooperation and artificial intelligence; these memoranda stem from provisions of the Charter on Strategic Partnership signed back in January between Armenia and the United States; in this sense, it is significant that the new U.S. administration also considers this document a priority; the agreements and outcomes reached within the Armenian–Azerbaijani normalization process are far more ambiguous; first, the sides agreed to initial the already agreed text of the peace treaty; in itself, this is hard to regard as a major achievement; negotiations on initialing had also taken place weeks earlier during Pashinyan and Aliyev’s talks in Abu Dhabi; in this regard, the significance of initialing seems to be somewhat inflated for PR purposes; Azerbaijan continues to set as a precondition for signing the peace treaty the amendment of Armenia’s constitution—a demand Aliyev reiterated immediately after the Washington negotiations; it is noteworthy that the trilateral declaration signed on the results of the meeting also contains an indirect reference to this: “In this respect, we acknowledged the need to continue further actions to achieve the signing and ultimate ratification of the Agreement;” that said, even the signing of a purely symbolic document at the White House will to some extent stabilize the situation and reduce the likelihood of military escalation in the region; another outcome of the Washington negotiations was the signing by the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan of a joint application to the OSCE regarding the dissolution of the Minsk Process and its related structures; Armenia had not been fundamentally opposed to the dissolution of the Minsk Group but had insisted it was prepared to take this step on the day the peace treaty was signed; in this case as well, we are seeing yet another step back from a previously stated position; the Armenian authorities will most likely argue that the Washington agreements were already sufficient to allay their concerns regarding the dissolution of the Minsk Group; the most crucial points of the signed trilateral declaration concerned the unblocking process; Point 3 of the document particularly states: “We reaffirmed the importance of the opening of communications between the two countries for intra-state, bilateral, and international transportation for the promotion of peace, stability, and prosperity in the region and in its neighborhood on the basis of respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and jurisdiction of the States; these efforts are to include unimpeded connectivity between the main part of the Republic of Azerbaijan and its Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic through the territory of the Republic of Armenia with reciprocal benefits for international and intra-state connectivity for the Republic of Armenia;” if we compare this section of the declaration’s text with Point 9 of the November 9, 2020 ceasefire statement, it is more favorable for Armenia in the sense that it mentions the principles underlying unblocking—sovereignty, territorial integrity, and jurisdiction; the mention of the principle of reciprocity is more vague and leaves room for differing interpretations; more concerning is that the term “unimpeded connectivity” has been carried over from the November 9 statement into this declaration’s text; in recent years, the sides have given diametrically opposite interpretations of this wording, and the same risk exists for the new document; Point 4 of the declaration notes that the Republic of Armenia will work with the United States of America and mutually determined third parties, to set forth a framework for the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP) connectivity project in the territory of the Republic of Armenia; to understand the practical aspects of implementing this and the previous point, it is necessary to be familiar with the details of the Armenian–American agreement on this matter; in particular, it is important to know who will be responsible in practice for ensuring security along the Meghri route, who will carry out border and customs checks, and many similar questions; Nikol Pashinyan, at his press conference after the negotiations, confirmed that no agreement had yet been reached at this stage on the details; he also did not rule out that a private security company could be responsible for security along the Meghri route, citing as an example Zvartnots Airport, which has its own security service; if the security of Azerbaijani cargo and passengers in Armenia’s territory is outsourced to a private security company, then talk of the principle of reciprocity or mutual benefits will be meaningless; there is no real likelihood that Azerbaijan would ever agree to similar arrangements on its own territory; overall, the significance of these agreements will also depend on developments in the Armenian–Turkish normalization process; in recent weeks, Turkish officials have hinted that the initialing of the peace treaty by Baku and Yerevan could also serve as a basis for progress in the Armenian–Turkish process; if such developments take place in the coming months, they could be considered one of the key achievements of the Washington process; from Armenia’s perspective, the Washington agreements are important primarily for managing the risks of possible escalation; U.S. involvement in this process and the documents signed in Washington will to some extent contribute to stabilizing the situation in the region; nevertheless, much will also depend on the degree and continuity of U.S. engagement, the practical agreements on unblocking and their details, as well as potential reactions from regional actors.