The Armenian Government has announced plans to hold a referendum to approve a new constitution in 2027, with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan assigned to draft a new constitution by the end of next year.

On Thursday, Justice Minister Grigor Minasyan, who is also the head of the Council of Constitutional Reforms, told reporters that ‘as a result of a new agreement, the constitutional referendum is planned for 2027’.

‘This means that we are going to work around this difficult document in detail, with public debates, jointly with all experts, and not in haste’ Minasyan said.

The drafting of a new constitution has been a contentious topic, with critics arguing that the government was doing so as a concession to Azerbaijan, a claim the government has denied.

The Council of Constitutional Reforms was established by the Prime Minister in January 2022 and tasked with drafting constitutional amendments. A draft version of the proposed constitutional amendments was sent to the government in January of this year. 

That same month, however, Pashinyan stated that Armenia needed a completely new constitution in order to make the country ‘more competitive and more viable in the new geopolitical and regional conditions’. 

Four months later, in May, Pashinyan officially issued a decree to draft a new constitution by December 2026, replacing the council’s task to ‘draft amendments to the constitution’ with ‘drafting a new constitution’. However, several members of the Council for Constitutional Reforms were unaware of this decision until late June.

The Armenian Government has repeatedly denied claims that the constitutional referendum is connected to the peace process.

According to government critics, however, changing Armenia’s Constitution is a precondition pushed by the Azerbaijani government, with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev stating that it would be ‘simply impossible’ to reach a peace deal if the Armenian constitution ‘remains unchanged’. Aliyev has argued that the Armenian Constitution lays claim to territories in Azerbaijan and Turkey. 

The Armenian Constitution references the Armenian Declaration of Independence, which includes a joint decision by the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Karabakh Council to ‘reunify the Armenian SSR and the Mountainous Region of Karabakh’.

In August, Azerbaijan agreed to withdraw their demand for the ‘Zangezur Corridor’, a route connecting mainland Azerbaijan with its exclave of Nakhchivan through southern Armenia, from a peace agreement with Armenia. This removed a major roadblock to the signing of a treaty, and Azerbaijan called the Armenian Constitution ‘pretty much the only obstacle to further progress in the peace process’.

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister, Jeyhun Bayramov, also noted on Tuesday that there were ‘positive developments’ in the peace talks, but reiterated that Armenia’s Constitution and other legal documents contained territorial claims against Azerbaijan and Turkey, calling this ‘the main obstacle’ to the completion of the peace treaty.

Read in Georgian on On.ge.