By Hrair Balian and Raffy Ardhaldjian
The article was originally published on Asbarez.com
The Abraham Accords, launched in 2020 under the Trump administration (first term), marked a major shift in Middle East diplomacy. Named after the shared patriarch of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the Accords aimed to enable normalization between Israel and Arab states—including the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan—without resolving the Palestinian conflict, actually at the expense of the Palestinian quest for self-determination. They led to diplomatic openings, trade agreements, tourism flows, and defense cooperation among the signatories. At their core, the Accords offer economic, political, and strategic incentives for states willing to engage Israel within a U.S.-backed framework.
While originally focused on Arab-Israeli relations, recent developments have expanded the scope of the Accords into new regions—including the South Caucasus and Central Asia, in addition to Syria and Lebanon. U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff has suggested that Armenia and Azerbaijan “might be willing to join the Abraham Peace Accords,” signaling a possible extension beyond the Arab world. Now that Donald Trump has returned to the White House for a second term, the Accords are likely to return to center stage, with renewed U.S. backing potentially accelerating outreach to new countries and regions.
Prominent U.S. and Gulf-based rabbis have actively advocated for Azerbaijan’s inclusion. Azerbaijan is one of only a handful of Shia-majority countries in the world. The original 2020 signatories—United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Sudan, and Kosovo—are all Sunni-majority states. If Azerbaijan joins, it would become only the second Shia-majority country to do so after Bahrain, adding a layer of religious diversity to the initiative while deepening Israel’s ties with the broader Muslim world.
Armenia, by contrast, would be the only Christian-majority nation to join the framework—introducing a distinct civilizational dimension to what has so far been a primarily Muslim-Jewish diplomatic initiative.
Against this backdrop, it is worth asking: what role might Armenia play in a future iteration of the Abraham Accords?
Armenia’s participation would be symbolically significant. As the first nation to adopt Christianity in 301 CE, Armenia represents the third Abrahamic tradition in a framework currently centered on Judaism and Islam. It is one of the few majority-Christian countries in the region, with deep historical and cultural ties to the Holy Land, including a centuries-old Armenian Quarter in Jerusalem. Moreover, Armenians have lived in Muslim-majority societies for centuries, developing a cultural fluency and coexistence experience that could serve the spirit of regional dialogue.
In this sense, Armenia’s inclusion could enrich the Accords by broadening their scope—introducing a Christian voice from the East that is neither Western nor imperial, but rooted in its own regional legacy.
However, symbolic presence is not a substitute for strategic posture. Any Armenian overture toward the Abraham Accords would carry significant geopolitical consequences. Iran has openly opposed the Accords, rightly viewing them as a pro-Western, pro-Israel and anti-Iranian alliance aimed at containing its influence. Russia, while more measured, sees them as part of a broader U.S. strategic encroachment—but notably maintains a special security and diplomatic relationship with Israel. This complicates Armenia’s balancing act: distancing from the Accords might satisfy Tehran and Moscow, but could strain ties with Washington.
Tehran has deepened its military and political ties with Yerevan in recent years, while Moscow, though increasingly unreliable, remains a key security and economic actor. Armenia would need to tread carefully, navigating the risks of realignment while avoiding perceptions of hostility from long standing partners.
The anti-Palestinian dimension of the Abraham Accords is troubling as well. Joining the Accords at a time when Israel is accused of committing genocide in Gaza, using starvation as a weapon of war just as Azerbaijan did in 2023 against Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, would be morally repugnant and is a crime against humanity. Among the current signatories, Bahrain has recalled its ambassador from Israel for the same reason.
The challenge is how Armenia might engage the economic and diplomatic opportunities offered by the U.S. through the Accords without becoming part of a hard security bloc and without endorsing the crime against humanity underway. This distinction is increasingly important, as the Abraham Accords are evolving into what some analysts describe as the “Abraham Alliance”—an emerging regional security architecture that goes beyond normalization to include defense coordination, intelligence sharing, and strategic containment, particularly of Iran. Is there a tiered or partial membership model that allows for participation in trade, tech, and cultural cooperation—without joining an overtly anti-Iranian security framework? A tiered membership model could involve Armenia participating in the economic cooperation council and cultural initiatives of the Accords while maintaining observer status in security discussions—similar to how some nations engage with regional organizations like ASEAN or the OSCE without full political integration.
For a country surrounded by powerful neighbors and vulnerable to being instrumentalized in their rivalries, Armenia would need to clearly signal that no aggression—against Iran or any other neighbor—would be launched from its territory.
But Armenia is not alone in this dilemma. The weakening of Iran’s regional proxies and the Saudi-Iranian détente have reduced the urgency of Saudi-Israeli normalization. Like Armenia, Saudi Arabia is unlikely to compromise its security by joining a framework seen as anti-Iran. This shared caution reveals a broader challenge: sustaining momentum without destabilizing regional balances.
Additionally, Saudi Arabia has indicated its intention to join the Abraham Accords but delayed its endorsement because of the war in Gaza. Armenia could do the same.
The most significant diplomatic challenge for Armenia in considering the Abraham Accords lies in its strategic relationship with Iran. As a landlocked country, Armenia depends heavily on reliable overland routes for trade and security. Its 44-kilometer border with Iran is not only narrow but also uniquely vital—it is Armenia’s sole direct access to the outside world not under the control or influence of Turkey or Azerbaijan, which already blockade its two other borders. This became starkly evident during the 2020 war, when Georgia—though not aligned with Turkey—temporarily suspended permits for military cargo transit to both Armenia and Azerbaijan, citing a policy of neutrality.
While presented as an even-handed measure, the move highlighted the fragility of Armenia’s regional connectivity. In this context, the Iranian border functions as a strategic fallback, supporting essential trade, energy cooperation, and at times, security coordination. Armenia’s relationship with Iran should be viewed in light of Tehran’s own deepening ties with Azerbaijan: in April 2025, Iran and Azerbaijan signed seven cooperation agreements spanning military cooperation (including joint exercises), trade, and information and communication technology. This parallel underscores the regional pragmatism at play and complicates any simplistic framing of Armenia’s Iranian alignment as exceptional or destabilizing. It also reinforces the need for nuanced diplomacy as Armenia weighs its engagement with the Abraham Accords.
Iran sees the Accords as a U.S.-led effort to contain its influence. This perception has prompted concrete responses: Tehran signed a major military cooperation agreement with Russia, conducted joint naval exercises in the Gulf of Oman, and proposed the competing Mwada framework (Muslim West Asian Dialogue Association) specifically designed to exclude Israel while promoting regional stability among Muslim states.
Any Armenian engagement with the Abraham Accords would require formal guarantees that Armenian territory would not be used against Iran, explicit carve-outs for continued energy cooperation, and perhaps a special status that distinguishes Armenia’s participation from the security components that most concern Tehran. This could take the form of a limited or associate engagement—participating in the economic and cultural dimensions of the Accords while remaining outside the core security mechanisms of the emerging Abraham Alliance. Without such provisions, Armenia risks trading one form of regional isolation for another.
More broadly, the long-term viability of the Abraham Accords may depend on whether they evolve beyond a rigid axis of alignment. If the initiative continues to function primarily as a security bloc aimed at containing Iran, it risks hardening regional divisions and provoking instability. For the Accords to mature into a durable framework for regional cooperation, they may need to find ways to acknowledge—and at least partially address—the security concerns of non-member states like Iran. Armenia’s balancing act, in this light, may offer an instructive case for what selective, non-threatening engagement could look like.
Azerbaijan complicates Armenia’s calculus. Israel is one of Baku’s closest allies, supplying significant defense technology and receiving nearly 40 percent of its oil imports from Azerbaijan via Turkey. There is also credible information that Azerbaijan allows Israeli intelligence activity on its soil. Since the 1990s, a strategic “energy-for-arms” partnership has formed the backbone of Israeli-Azerbaijani ties, with nearly 69 percent of Azerbaijan’s arms imports between 2016 and 2021 coming from Israel. Azerbaijan’s positioning plays a key geopolitical role as “the only country that shares borders with Iran and Russia,” making it strategically valuable to Israel and the United States. Azerbaijan has also been positioning itself as the gateway to post-Soviet Turkic states like kazakhstan.
Armenia cannot compete with this strategic depth. However, it can and should seek ways to ensure that Israeli-supplied weapons are not used against it, as occurred in the 2016, 2020 and 2023 wars. Unlike Azerbaijan’s transactional alliance, Armenia’s value proposition lies in its democratic trajectory and potential to strengthen broader U.S. engagement with the Caucasus region through pluralistic institutions. One idea worth floating is a non-aggression understanding among Accords participants—ensuring that military technologies are not deployed in unresolved regional conflicts. A meaningful diplomatic step could also be Israeli recognition of the Armenian Genocide. With Israel-Turkey relations no longer the constraint they once were, the geopolitical barriers to recognition have diminished considerably. Historians and analysts inside Israel like Shmuel Lederman have been calling for Israel to recognize the Armenian Genocide. The parallel experiences of historical trauma could serve as a foundation for moral alignment and deeper cultural understanding within the Accords framework. Such recognition would signal Israel’s commitment to historical truth and justice—values that Armenia has long championed—while creating space for a more principled partnership beyond mere strategic convenience.
In the first round of the Abraham Accords, countries like the UAE and Bahrain normalized relations with Israel by establishing diplomatic ties, direct flights, and trade channels—often starting from no prior relations. Armenia, by contrast, already has formal diplomatic ties with Israel. Israel recognized Armenia’s independence in 1991, and relations were established in 1992. Armenia appointed its first resident ambassador to Israel in 2021, and Israel followed in 2022. While relations remain limited, this existing foundation sets Armenia apart from earlier Accords entrants and could enable a more incremental, pragmatic expansion of ties.
Beyond diplomacy, Armenia could develop trade ties with Israel—particularly in sectors like diamond cutting, high-tech manufacturing, tourism and agricultural technology. The two countries could also collaborate on water management, education, and tourism. Armenia’s growing tech sector may find opportunities to integrate with regional innovation hubs emerging under the Abraham Accords framework.
Geopolitically, there’s an additional layer of alignment. Armenia has been developing closer ties with India in recent years, particularly in defense procurement and strategic cooperation. Given Israel’s strong alliance with India—and Pakistan’s deepening military partnership with Turkey and Azerbaijan—there may be quiet convergence opportunities between Armenian and Israeli interests, even if their respective starting points differ.
Diplomacy remains delicate. Armenia must avoid appearing anti-Palestinian, while also signaling openness to constructive relations with Israel— anchoring its engagement in dialogue rather than strategic alignment.
Like the Jews, Armenians have historically operated as a global trading people—building networks across empires, adapting to complex markets, and sustaining commerce through diaspora trust and transregional connectivity. The medieval Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia thrived as a mercantile state linking East and West, while 17th-century Armenian merchants played key roles in trade between Persia, India, and Southeast Asia, often working within the English and Dutch East India Company systems. In the post-Soviet era, Armenians have continued to punch above their weight in trade with the Eurasian Economic Union and broader ex-Soviet markets.
This deep-rooted trading culture—and deep diaspora network reach—positions Armenia to serve as a connective node within the Abraham Accords. Its historical commercial adaptability, strategic location, and global Armenian networks could help bridge Gulf, Israeli, Indian, and Eurasian markets. With the right infrastructure and regulatory frameworks, Armenia could support east-west and north-south trade corridors, while offering a commercial model shaped not by scale, but by agility and trust-based networks—values that align with the spirit of the Accords.
One final consideration is the current tendency to link Armenia’s potential entry into the Abraham Accords to its peace process with Azerbaijan. These two tracks should be decoupled. Azerbaijan’s integration into the Accords is probably inevitable, and it is already receiving public support from influential rabbinical figures. Armenia, however, should define its participation on its own terms—grounded in its civilizational identity, regional interests, and strategic constraints.
The Turkey factor is also worth watching. While Ankara continues to posture publicly in support of the Palestinian cause, nearly 40 percent of Israel’s oil imports pass through Turkish territory, and Turkish officials were present during recent backchannel discussions between Syrian and Israeli representatives held in Azerbaijan. This quiet diplomacy suggests that Turkey may be more flexible behind the scenes than its rhetoric implies—and that space may exist for more creative regional alignments.
The question is not whether Armenia can become a full member of the Abraham Accords tomorrow. It is whether a principled form of engagement is possible—one that avoids undermining Armenia’s delicate relations with Iran and Russia, and avoids signaling an endorsement of the crimes against humanity underway in Gaza, while offering diplomatic space, economic opportunity, and a stronger regional presence.
Armenia cannot afford to remain isolated. Nor can it afford to be instrumentalized by competing powers. If approached with clarity and care, the Abraham Accords may offer Armenia not just a new alliance, but a new platform for recalibrating its role—less as a passive object of geography, and more as a contributor to regional stability.
While a second wave of the Abraham Accords is often described as imminent, normalization between Israel and countries like Saudi Arabia, Syria, or Lebanon will likely be a drawn-out, politically sensitive process. Armenia faces its own constraints. But the evolving framework of the Accords offers an opportunity for Armenian political thought to engage with a live experiment in regional architecture. It functions as a microcosm of the broader dilemmas Armenia will face as global alignments shift and regional orders are renegotiated.
One practical step could be for Armenian diplomacy to align its posture with that of Syria, Lebanon, and others—while also reaffirming support for Palestinian self-determination. Armenia’s deep historical ties to the Levant, its diplomatic presence, and long-standing communities in both countries provide a foundation for coordinated engagement. By approaching the Abraham Accords not in isolation, but in conversation with others, Armenia may find a path that is cautious, creative, and ultimately its own. Equally, the Armenian Diaspora organizations are advised to do the same in terms of coordinating any advocacy on this highly sensitive issue with Armenia’s Foreign Ministry. Uncoordinated actions could backfire.
Hrair Balian has practiced conflict resolution for the past 35 years in the Middle East, Africa, Balkans, Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia. He has served in leadership positions with the UN, OSCE and NGOs, including The Carter Center (Director, Conflict Resolution, 2008-2022).
Raffy Ardhaldjian is a Fletcher School graduate, technology professional, and advisor to boards, public institutions, and NGOs. He writes on Armenian political affairs across the diaspora and Armenia.
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