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Armenia Still Weighs Participation in COP29 Following Invitation from Baku

By Gunay Hajiyeva October 22, 2024

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COP29 climate summit will take place in Baku, Azerbaijan on November 11-22, 2024 / Trend News Agency

The Armenian government is currently deliberating on participating in the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, scheduled for November in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku.

On Tuesday, Armenian Parliament Speaker Alen Simonyan said during a briefing that no definitive decision has been made regarding Armenia's attendance, and the potential benefits of participation are under consideration.

"There is no decision yet on whether Armenia will participate in COP29 in Baku; we need to discuss what this will bring to Armenia,” TASS quotes Simonyan as saying.

In July, authorities in Azerbaijan have formally invited Armenia to attend the COP29 global climate summit in Baku on November 11-22.

Baku highlighted this invitation as “Azerbaijan’s goodwill and inclusive approach” despite the lack of formal diplomatic relations between the two nations.

Azerbaijan was confirmed as the host of COP29 during the COP28 plenary session on December 11, 2023. This decision followed collective support from Eastern European countries, including Armenia.

COP29 aims to address critical global climate challenges, focusing on climate finance, mitigation, and adaptation. The conference is expected to attract over 100 world leaders and thousands of delegates, providing a significant platform for dialogue and action on climate change.

In October, Armenia’s President Vahagn Khachaturyan said Yerevan was hopeful to sign 16 provisions of a peace deal with Azerbaijan before the COP29 conference.

However, Baku rejected Armenia’s call, referring to the incomplete draft of the peace agreement and the existing territorial claims in the Constitution of Armenia on the Karabakh (Garabagh) region of Azerbaijan.

"Suggesting that a peace agreement in its current incomplete form could be signed tomorrow is clearly unrealistic, unacceptable, and deliberately misleading. There are still very important issues in the draft peace agreement that must be fully addressed. Otherwise, the agreement would be half-baked and deficient," said Elchin Amirbayov, Special Representative of President of Azerbaijan.

He emphasized that the most significant obstacle to the peace deal is territorial claim in Armenia’s Constitution on the Karabakh region, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.

Amirbayov believes that the peace agreement will not be possible without constitutional amendments in Armenia as territorial claim in its current constitution can encourage a new government in the future to annul the document by citing constitutional contradictions, as Armenia’s constitution supersedes any external agreement.

Earlier, President Ilham Aliyev has also made it clear that no agreement can be signed until Armenia amends its constitution. President Aliyev labelled Armenia’s peace proposal as “unrealistic and unacceptable”.

Last year, Armenian Prime Minister stated that the Declaration of Independence, which includes territorial claims against Azerbaijan by endorsing the unification of Azerbaijan’s Karabakh (Garabagh) region with Armenia, would keep Yerevan in a perpetual conflict with its neighbors, specifically Ankara and Baku.

Armenia and Azerbaijan had long been at odds over the latter’s Karabakh (Garabagh) region. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Armenia launched a full-scale war against Azerbaijan, which ended in a ceasefire in 1994. The war led to Armenia occupying 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territories, resulting in over 30,000 Azerbaijanis killed and one million others expelled from those lands in a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign conducted by Armenia.

On September 27, 2020, the decades-old conflict reignited after Armenia’s forces illegally deployed in occupied Azerbaijani lands shelled military positions and civilian settlements of Azerbaijan. During the ensuing counter-attack operations that lasted 44 days, Azerbaijani forces liberated over 300 settlements, including the cities of Jabrayil, Fuzuli, Zangilan, Gubadli, and Shusha, from Armenian occupation. The war ended on November 10, 2020, with a tripartite statement signed by Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia, under which Armenia returned the occupied Aghdam, Kalbajar, and Lachin districts to Azerbaijan.

Shortly after the 2020 war, Azerbaijani authorities expressed their readiness and determination to negotiate with Armenia to bring long-awaited peace to the region. In March 2022, Baku proposed five basic principles to Yerevan, including mutual recognition of territorial integrity and border delimitation.