Vance Signs Civil Nuclear Agreement in Armenia on Historic Visit

Vice President JD Vance signed an agreement on civil nuclear energy cooperation with Armenia on Monday, the first stop of a South Caucasus trip, according to Al Jazeera and Euronews. Vance is the first sitting U.S. president or vice president to visit Armenia, the Associated Press and Euronews reported.

Accounts differ on exactly what was signed. World Nuclear News reported that Vance and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint statement announcing the completion of negotiations on a cooperation agreement on peaceful nuclear energy, the kind known as a 123 Agreement, which U.S. law requires before nuclear trade. The Associated Press described it as an agreement to advance negotiations on a civil nuclear energy deal. Al Jazeera called it a 123 Agreement signed by the two leaders.

Vance said the agreement could mean up to $5 billion in initial U.S. exports to Armenia plus $4 billion in longer-term fuel and maintenance contracts, according to Al Jazeera, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and World Nuclear News; Al Jazeera put the total at up to $9 billion. He said small modular reactors using American technology would come to the country. Pashinyan said the agreement “will open a new chapter in the deepening energy partnership between Armenia and the United States.”

The stakes are partly about Russia. Armenia’s only nuclear plant, at Metsamor, was built in the Soviet era and, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, supplies about a third of the country’s electricity and is due to close in 2036. Al Jazeera and World Nuclear News report that Armenia is reviewing reactor proposals from the United States, Russia, China, France and South Korea. Euronews noted that Moscow, historically Armenia’s closest ally in the South Caucasus, is watching the visit closely.

Vance also promoted the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a proposed 43-kilometer road-and-rail corridor across southern Armenia that would link Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave and bypass Russia and Iran, according to Al Jazeera, Euronews and RFE/RL. It grows out of the agreement Armenia and Azerbaijan signed at the White House in August 2025. Vance and Pashinyan also announced an $11 million U.S. drone sale, RFE/RL and Euronews reported. “We’re not just making peace for Armenia,” Vance said, according to Al Jazeera and Euronews. “We’re also creating real prosperity for Armenia and the United States together.”

The visit has an unresolved human side. More than 20 Armenian human rights groups wrote to Vance asking him to help free Armenians imprisoned in Azerbaijan, and Karabakh refugees rallied in Yerevan with the same demand, RFE/RL and France 24 reported. A military court in Baku sentenced Armenian separatist leaders to lengthy terms in a war crimes trial last week. Azerbaijan seized Karabakh in a 2023 offensive that ended decades of rule by Armenian separatists, and most of the region’s roughly 120,000 Armenian residents then fled to Armenia, the Associated Press reported. Vance was due in Azerbaijan next, on Tuesday.