YEREVAN (Azatutyun.am)—Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov reiterated Baku’s main precondition for signing a peace deal with Armenia on Tuesday one day after his Armenian counterpart said the two nations are now closer to ending their conflict than ever before.
“Despite the great progress made towards the normalization of interstate relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia and the signing of a final peace agreement, I would like to note once again that the existence of territorial claims against Azerbaijan within the framework of the Armenian constitution, Armenia’s armament and the tendency for revanchism continue to be the biggest obstacle in the peace process,” Bayramov was reported to say during a visit to Kazakhstan.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly singled out a change of the Armenian constitution among his multiple conditions for peace. While rejecting that demand in public, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has pledged to try to enact a new Armenian constitution through a referendum. But this is unlikely to happen before June 2026.
The two sides have said that they agree on 15 of the 17 articles of a draft peace treaty discussed by them. Baku responded on February 25 to Yerevan’s most recent proposals designed to bridge their remaining differences. Pashinyan said the next day that they continue to disagree on the two other articles.
The prime minister last week complained about Azerbaijan’s failure to accept his proposals regarding transport links for its Nakhichevan exclave and again suggested that Baku may be preparing the ground to attack Armenia.
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan likewise pointed to the lack of a positive Azerbaijani reaction to the “constructive” Armenian proposals on the transport links as well as a “mutual arms control and verification mechanism” when he spoke at an Indian think-tank during a visit to New Delhi on Monday.
“Moreover, we continue hearing high-level public statements and narratives pertaining to territorial claims against the sovereign Republic of Armenia, including through the so-called ‘Western Azerbaijan’ narrative,” he said.
Mirzoyan insisted at the same time that “today, more than ever, we are close to the signing of the peace treaty.”
Armenian opposition leaders maintain that Aliyev has no intention to sign any agreement before clinching more far-reaching concessions from Pashinyan. They say that Pashinyan’s appeasement policy has only encouraged the Azerbaijani strongman to make more demands on Yerevan.
