Baku : Azerbaijan has removed all restrictions on cargo transit to Armenia, signaling a significant thaw in relations between the two countries after nearly four decades of conflict. President Ilham Aliyev announced the decision during a meeting with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Astana on Tuesday.

The move was immediately put into practice with the first shipment of Kazakh grain passing through Azerbaijan en route to Armenia. This marks the first such transit since operations were halted during the final years of the Soviet Union, when tensions first erupted between the neighboring states. Aliyev described the development as evidence that peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia is moving from theory into reality.

Hikmet Hajiyev, Aliyev’s foreign policy adviser, confirmed that the cargo would travel via Georgia and described the initiative as “an economic benefit of peace.” Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan hailed the decision as a crucial step for reopening regional communications, strengthening mutual trust, and institutionalizing the peace achieved between the two nations.

Armenia and Azerbaijan had been locked in a bitter dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, a mountainous area within Azerbaijan that had enjoyed de facto independence for nearly three decades until Baku regained full control in 2023. Although a U.S.-brokered peace agreement was signed in August 2025, major hurdles remain, including Azerbaijan’s demand for constitutional amendments in Armenia.

Analysts note that easing cargo transit could help transform the South Caucasus, an oil- and gas-rich region and a key transit route connecting Asia and Europe. Plans for a strategic transit corridor, developed with U.S. support, are expected to further boost trade and bilateral economic cooperation between Baku and Yerevan.

The lifting of cargo restrictions is widely seen as a practical step toward normalizing relations, signaling that both countries are willing to build a stable and cooperative future in a region long marred by conflict.