Checking in on the ‘seven un-endable wars’ Trump did (not) end

By Ivana Kottasová, CNN

(CNN) — US President Donald Trump all but nominated himself for the Nobel Peace Prize on Tuesday, claiming in his address to the United Nations that he has “ended seven un-endable wars,” which “were raging, with countless thousands of people being killed.”

“I ended seven wars, and in all cases, they were raging, with countless thousands of people being killed. This includes Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, the Congo and Rwanda — a vicious, violent war that was — Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Trump said in his remarks.

The two conflicts that Trump has so far put the most efforts into ending – Israel’s war in Gaza and Russia’s war on Ukraine – continue to rage with no signs of easing, despite the myriads of deadlines, threats and promises he has made to get ceasefire agreements.

But the failure to get a deal in the Middle East and Ukraine has not stopped Trump from boasting about the conflicts he said he ended.

Trump has repeated this claim since earlier this summer, and the White House provided a list of the seven claimed bilateral agreements last month.

While he certainly contributed to brokering a couple of agreements between long-standing foes, his role in securing ceasefires in some of the other conflicts he has boasted about ending has been disputed by some of the countries involved.

And then of course there are the wars that were not happening when he claims to have ended them.

Armenia and Azerbaijan

Trump certainly deserves credit for hosting the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House in August, where they finalized a peace agreement, which they first announced some five months earlier.

The two former Soviet republics had been locked in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for almost four decades. The breakaway region in the Caucasus Mountains was home to around 120,000 ethnic Armenians and while it is internationally considered as part of Azerbaijan, it was controlled by Armenian separatists since the fall of the Soviet Union.

That changed in 2023, when a lightning 24-hour assault saw Azerbaijan regain total control of Nagorno-Karabakh, prompting the region’s ethnic Armenian population to flee to Armenia within a week.

Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev both praised Trump for his role in getting the deal signed – even if he later, while talking about it, confused Armenia for Albania and called Azerbaijan “Aberbaijan.”

While undoubtedly a step forward, the agreement has not been ratified by either country. Several issues remain to be resolved – most notably, Azerbaijan is demanding that Armenia changes its constitution – a move that would likely be rejected by Armenian voters in a referendum.

Cambodia and Thailand

The 508-mile (817-kilometer) border between Thailand and Cambodia has been prone to flareups of violence for decades.

Cambodia has previously sought a ruling from the UN’s International Court of Justice over disputed areas, but Thailand said it does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction and claims that some areas along the border were never fully demarcated.

The most recent round of violence erupted in July when at least 38 people, mostly civilians, were killed and hundreds of thousands were forced to flee their homes.

Trump held separate phone calls with the leaders of the two countries, threatening to stop trade negotiations if they didn’t agree to a ceasefire.

The two sides met in Malaysia within days and agreed to a ceasefire. However, the conflict over the contested border remains unresolved – even though Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet said that he nominated the US president for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Israel and Iran

When the US president announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran after 12 days of fighting in June, it looked a bit premature as both countries continued with their final attacks.

However, the two countries did later endorse the ceasefire.

The direct confrontation between the long-times foes started when Israel launched surprise attacks on Iranian military and nuclear facilities that killed prominent politicians, military leaders and nuclear scientists. Iran responded with waves of missile and drone strikes against Israeli cities and military sites.

While Trump made it clear he was initially against Israel attacking Iran directly, the US joined and bombed Iran’s main nuclear facilities with its uniquely powerful “bunker busting” bombs.

Like with many of the other conflicts he claims to have ended, Trump’s role in bringing the violence to an end is unclear. No peace agreement or a firm deal on the future of Iran’s nuclear program has been reached and both Iran and Israel have threatened each other since then.

India and Pakistan

India and Pakistan got embroiled in their most intense conflict in decades in May, after India fired missiles across nine sites in Pakistan in response to a massacre of tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir, which India blamed on Pakistan.

The conflict was raging for several days when, out of the blue, Trump announced on social media that the US had brokered an end to the fighting.

There are conflicting accounts of how the ceasefire was negotiated. Islamabad praised US involvement and nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for what it said was “decisive diplomatic intervention.”

India downplayed Trump’s involvement, saying instead the ceasefire was agreed “directly between the two countries.” India has fiercely resisted any foreign intervention on the issue of Kashmir, the disputed region over which India and Pakistan fought several wars, insisting it’s not up to other countries to get involved.

Rwanda and the DRC

When the representatives of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda signed a peace agreement brokered by the US in June, it was hailed by Trump as “a Great Day for Africa and, quite frankly, a Great Day for the World!”

However, there is little to suggest that the conflict – one of the most protracted and complex conflicts in the world – is easing in any way.

Scores of militia groups that have fought for three decades are still engaging in deadly fighting,

CNN visited the rebel-held city of Goma, home to more than 2 million people, earlier this month. Local people, aid workers and rebel leaders told CNN the fighting and the hardships caused by it continue.

The same week, the United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR) released a fact-finding report on the escalation of hostilities between January and July 2025 in North and South Kivu, the provinces in eastern DR Congo’s where two of its largest cities Goma and Bukavu are located.

Egypt and Ethiopia

It is unclear how exactly Trump ended this conflict, since Egypt and Ethiopia were not, and are not, actually at war.

However, the two are locked in a bitter dispute over a massive hydroelectric dam that Ethiopia officially opened earlier this month – and there are worried that this rift could escalate.

Sitting on a tributary of the Nile, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, took some 15 years to built and the Ethiopians see it as a key to their future economic prosperity.

Egypt and Sudan have long opposed the dam, arguing that it would negatively impact the availability of water downstream. Egypt has argued that under a colonial-era treaty signed with Britain, it has the rights to veto any projects on the Nile.

Serbia and Kosovo

Another puzzling item on Trump’s list of conflicts he has solved.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, nine years after NATO launched a bombing campaign against Serbian forces responsible for a brutal crackdown against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

Serbia and Kosovo signed an economic normalization agreement during Trump’s first term in 2020, but Serbia continues to view Kosovo as a breakaway state and does not recognize its independence.

Tensions between the two continue to flare up every few months, with the European Union – which both countries wish to join – playing a key role in mediation.

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CNN’s Rhea Mogul, Helen Regan, Sophia Saifi, Esha Mitra, Aditi Sangal, Nic Robertson, Alayne Treene, Sophia Saifi, Alex Stambaugh, Adam Cancryn, Alejandra Jaramillo, Caitlin Danaher, Gul Tuysuz, Nimi Princewill, Brad Lendon, Lauren Kent, Sarah Dean, Larry Madowo, Kocha Olarn and Kathleen Magramo contributed reporting.