Exclusive Azerbaijan’s Aliyev praises Trump, says he ‘really deserves’ Nobel Peace Prize

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev said US President Donald Trump “really deserves” the Nobel Peace Prize, praising his role in Africa, Asia and the Southern Caucasus and calling him a leader who “wants peace.”

Speaking to Al Arabiya in an exclusive interview airing next week, Aliyev said: “Together with [Armenia], we nominated President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. He really deserves it.”

“He made a miracle in Africa, in Asia, and in the Southern Caucasus. And this is his character, this is his nature. He wants peace.

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He’s a person who is absolutely different from a traditional image of a Western leader. He’s very friendly.”

Aliyev also described the US president as “very generous.”

“He was so generous to give all [these] gifts, even more than was planned. He [is really] a person who deserves a lot of credit.”

During the exclusive interview, Aliyev noted that his attitude toward Trump has always been positive.

“My attitude [toward] him as a politician was always positive, even during his first term, though at that time we didn’t have a chance to meet. And especially when he was deprived of being elected by the electoral fraud of deep state representatives,” he said, adding, “they stole his victory.”

Aliyev added that Trump demonstrated dignity despite losing office.

“So during that time when he was not president, he behaved in a very decent manner. He demonstrated great courage and dignity. And to come back in America with all these frogs in the swamp, you know, like USAID, Radio Liberty, fake news like Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek – all of them were against him. All of them were demonizing him the same way they demonized me, for instance. Not maybe to the same level, but in the same way.”

Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a US-brokered peace agreement on August 8 during a meeting with Trump.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at odds since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani region mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Azerbaijan took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting almost all of the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.

The agreement includes establishing a transit corridor passing through Armenia to connect Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan, a longstanding demand of Baku.

After signing the deal, Aliyev and Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan joined a growing list of foreign leaders and other officials who have said Trump should receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in helping ease long-running conflicts across the globe.

The peace deal between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda helped end the decadeslong conflict in eastern Congo, and the US mediated a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, while Trump intervened in clashes between Cambodia and Thailand by threatening to withhold trade agreements with both countries if their fighting continued.

with agencies

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