By Adam Cancryn, Alejandra Jaramillo, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump hosted the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House on Friday, where they finalized a peace agreement that would grant the United States exclusive development access to a critical transit corridor in the South Caucasus, which will be named after Trump.

The deal is aimed at quelling long-simmering tensions between the two nations, while opening up the region for greater economic development — including through granting the US long-term, exclusive rights to carve a new transportation route through Armenian territory.

“Many tried to find a resolution,” Trump said on Friday alongside Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia and President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan. “But with this accord, we’ve finally succeeded in making peace.”

And in a concession sure to delight Trump, who has sought to brand himself in his first six months in office as a global peacemaker, the corridor will be called the TRIPP — the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity.

The project will operate under Armenian legal jurisdiction, and the United States will in turn lease the land to a consortium responsible for construction and management, according to a senior administration official.

“This declaration establishes what they are calling a great honor for me — I didn’t ask for this,” Trump said of the decision to name the corridor after him.

The deal is the latest in a string of diplomatic pacts that the White House has played a role in brokering around the globe. It comes on the heels of a ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand that was reached late last month, after Trump threatened to cut off trade talks with both countries if they continued to fight each other.

“I was talking to one of the two nations on trade, and I said, ‘I’m not going to sign a trade deal if you guys are going to fight,’” Trump said. “We got it stopped.”

White House officials have prioritized the diplomatic efforts in a bid to follow through on Trump’s campaign pledge to end wars across the world. The administration has highlighted its work on smaller-scale conflicts even as Trump struggles to resolve the two wars that more directly involve the US: Israel’s war in Gaza and Russia’s incursion into Ukraine.

And for Trump himself, there is an added motivation: Each peace deal, the president has argued, should bring him closer to winning the Nobel Peace Prize that he’s coveted for years.

The president has long complained about the decision to award former President Barack Obama the prize in 2009, at the start of his first term. And in recent months, Trump has increasingly highlighted his credentials for receiving the same recognition, though on Friday he insisted he wasn’t “politicking” for it.

Multiple foreign leaders have nominated the president for the Peace Prize to curry favor with him — the Armenian prime minister and Azerbaijani president on Friday became the latest to endorse his candidacy for the award.

“Who, if not President Trump, deserves the Nobel Peace Prize?” Aliyev said, as Trump looked on. “President Trump, in six months, did [a] miracle.”

In addition to the peace framework between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the countries’ heads of state will endorse a formal request to disband the Minsk Group. The group, established in 1992 and co-chaired by France, Russia and the US, has long been tasked with mediating the dispute between the two nations.

“Thirty-five years of death and hatred — and now it’s going to be love and respect and success together,” Trump said of the pact between Armenia and Azerbaijan, beaming as the foreign leaders shook hands in front of him.

A senior administration official said the Trump administration identified the transportation corridor as a strategic opportunity in the South Caucasus as early as the end of February. Formal negotiations to determine which US entities will operate the transit corridor are expected to begin next week. That official said that the administration has so far received calls from nine potential candidates — including three US-based operators.

The trilateral signing coincides with a key deadline set by Trump for Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to steps to halt his invasion of Ukraine or face further economic sanctions.

Trump during the signing event confirmed he would soon meet with Putin in an effort to secure a deal between Russia and Ukraine, adding that he would announce the location for that summit later on Friday.

“We have a shot at it,” Trump said of a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire. “It’s got to be solved.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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