Azerbaijan, Armenia Conclude Negotiations on Peace Treaty

Azerbaijan and Armenia have concluded negotiations on finalizing the text of the peace agreement.

On Thursday, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov stated that Armenia has accepted Azerbaijan’s proposals regarding the last two unresolved points of the agreement.

"At the next stage, Baku's expectations are as follows – Armenia must amend its constitution, which still contains territorial claims against Azerbaijan," the minister said on the sidelines of the 12th Global Baku Forum.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry reaffirmed that Armenia must amend its constitution to remove territorial claims against Azerbaijan as a prerequisite for signing the peace agreement. In a statement on the conclusion of the negotiations, the ministry also called for the formal dissolution of the obsolete OSCE Minsk Group and its related structures.

In December 2024, President Ilham Aliyev stated that 15 out of 17 articles of the peace agreement had been agreed upon. He noted that the two unresolved articles concerned refraining from filing international claims against each other and the prohibition of deploying representatives of third countries along the Azerbaijan-Armenia border.

In February, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan reaffirmed his support for adopting a new constitution through a nationwide referendum. In August 2023, the Armenian government announced plans to hold a referendum in 2027 to approve a new constitution, instructing Pashinyan's office to draft the new constitutional project by the end of 2026. Pashinyan first introduced this concept in April 2024, emphasizing that Armenians must accept modern Armenia within its current borders.

On Thursday, Hikmat Hajiyev, Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan, said Azerbaijan, as the initiator and author of the peace treaty presented to Armenia, has laid the foundation for a new post-conflict status quo in the South Caucasus, based on the principles of territorial integrity and sovereignty of states.

The new status quo demands new approaches, including constitutional amendments that have been proven quite worthy in the light of resolving interstate conflicts, Hajiyev said.

"We believe that addressing such issues, particularly Armenia’s amendments to its Constitution, will create better conditions for advancing the peace agenda in the region,” he stated, adding that there are still territorial claims against Azerbaijan in Armenia’s constitution.

At the 12th Global Baku Forum on Thursday, President Ilham Aliyev reaffirmed that the peace treaty is being negotiated between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

On Wednesday, Armenia’s Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said his country had responded to Azerbaijan regarding the 12th draft of the peace agreement. According to him, Armenia will have the opportunity to discuss all matters related to the signing and ratification of the peace treaty with Azerbaijan.

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, Azerbaijan proposed five basic principles to Armenia, including mutual recognition of territorial integrity and border delimitation.

However, despite high-level meetings and dialogues, finalization of the peace treaty remained stalled due to disagreements on key issues.

One of the major obstacles was Armenia’s incumbent Constitution, which references its Declaration of Independence, a document that includes territorial claims against Azerbaijan by endorsing the unification of Azerbaijan’s Karabakh (Garabagh) region with Armenia.

The preamble of the Declaration states: “Based on the December 1, 1989, joint decision of the Armenian SSR Supreme Council and the Artsakh National Council on the ‘Reunification of the Armenian SSR and the Mountainous Region of Karabakh’.” This means that the annexation of the Karabakh region, an internationally recognized part of Azerbaijan (referred to as Artsakh in Armenian), is officially part of Armenia’s state policy.

In June 2024, Prime Minister Pashinyan acknowledged that a peace treaty with Azerbaijan was close to completion but insisted that Armenia would not agree to Azerbaijan’s demand for a constitutional change. On July 5, Constitution Day in Armenia, Pashinyan highlighted the need for a new constitution that reflects the Armenian people’s will and vision.

President Aliyev has repeatedly stated that as long as Armenia’s Constitution contains territorial claims on the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, a peace agreement will not be possible, as the Constitution supersedes any other document, including international treaties.