+ ↺ − 16 pxSteve Witkoff, the U.S. President’s special envoy, praised Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev as a strong leader committed to peace. “Azerbaijan’s president was a strong, decisive leader prepared to make the hard choices necessary for peace, yet weak leaders like those in the previous administration had allowed ties to atrophy,” Witkoff wrote in his article published by the Washington Examiner. “President Aliyev impressed us as a man who understands both his nation’s interests and the broader stakes of regional stability. Witkoff said generations of diplomats dismissed decades of bitter conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia as insoluble, however that ended when President Donald Trump returned to office. In conclusion, Witkoff stressed that today, the South Caucasus is safer, more prosperous, and more stable today because Trump, Aliyev, and Pashinyan chose results over rhetoric.