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Become a memberArmenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has appealed to Azerbaijan to sign a peace agreement previously agreed upon by the two countries, as fears grow that a new escalation may be imminent.
In a series of statements on social media on Wednesday and Thursday, Pashinyan called on Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to begin ‘joint consultations’ on signing the draft agreement and offering to sign the deal himself immediately.
Unlike most of Pashinyan’s communications, Thursday’s statement, as well as two others published a day earlier, included English translations.
The posts came as Azerbaijan continues to accuse Armenian forces of opening fire along the border. Since 16 March, Armenia has 11 times dismissed that any ceasefire violations have taken place.
In a post on Wednesday, Pashinyan insisted he had provided explicit orders to Armenia’s Defence Ministry to avoid any escalation on the border, adding that ‘Armenia is heading for peace, not war’.
The Armenian Defence Ministry has stated that Azerbaijan has not provided Armenia with any evidence that the ceasefire was being violated, despite appealing for proof of the allegations in order to fully investigate them.
Yousef Bardouka
When asked by journalists on Thursday if they had observed a build up of Azerbaijani forces on the border, the Secretary of the Armenian Security Council, Armen Grigoryan, avoided giving a direct answer.
On Thursday, Sargis Khandanyan, the Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Relations, proposed in a post on Facebook that the Azerbaijani Parliament ‘convene a joint meeting between our committees’.
‘Such an initiative would complement other confidence-building measures that our countries may undertake and contribute to strengthening regional stability’, Khandanyan wrote in both English and Armenian.
The pleas for peace from Armenian officials come amidst an apparent campaign by pro-government voices in Azerbaijan for people to refrain from filming or photographing the movements of troops and military equipment in the country.
On Monday, Azerbaijan’s State Security Service (SSS) arrested a man for publishing footage of military equipment on TikTok. They claimed that footage from 27 February was supplemented with footage from previous periods.
Several pro-government media outlets and social media accounts, including the Bez Tormozov (Without Brakes) Telegram channel and Caliber, urged people not to film military equipment.
Bez Tormozov shared a poster that read ‘Don’t forget that the enemy sees everything’ and ‘Don’t share secrets with the enemy’.
An accompanying caption read, ‘by filming and distributing footage showing the movement of military equipment and personnel, you are committing treason to the motherland, do not forget that the motherland is [your] mother!’.
There were varying reactions from the channel’s followers, with some expressing skepticism and concern saying, ‘where we are going, what are we preparing for?’.
One person responded that ‘[those who leak information] should be punished with the long arrests’, while another commented ‘those who leak information like this, [are] no different than an Armenian’.
Rasmus Canbäck, a Swedish journalist covering the region, wrote on X that the previous time such messages were spread was ‘before the final offensive against Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023’.
The mounting tension comes despite Azerbaijan and Armenia separately announcing on 13 March that the terms for a peace agreement had been concluded.
On the same evening, however, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry named amendments to Armenia’s constitution and the dissolution of the ‘obsolete and dysfunctional’ OSCE Minsk Group as preconditions to signing the deal.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
Since then, Azerbaijani officials have continued to make hostile statements towards Armenia.
In a vitriolic speech on 13 March, Aliyev said ‘the level of trust to Armenia is close to zero’.
‘So, we do not trust any of their words […] including today’s government. Again, all that they say, for us, has zero meaning. We need documents; we need papers’, he said.
In an interview with Euronews later that day, Aliyev said he was not ‘optimistic’ about the prospect of regional stability.
‘I don't think that we will achieve stability in the coming months or even coming years’, Aliyev said.
‘We had a time for almost 30 years when we had a ceasefire agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which was achieved in spring 1994. But that did not mean that the war ended; it just transformed. The war only ends when you have a peace agreement’, he added.
‘After almost five years since the Second Karabakh War, we don’t have a peace deal with Armenia. Yes, we have a quiet period, and no casualties, and this is a big advantage of today's situation’.
Aliyev’s comments this week followed several meetings with the former IDPs in Madagiz (Sugovushan) village in the Aghdara (Martakert) district. During one meeting with local residents, Aliyev stated that ‘the entire nation knew that this was not the end of our work, so to speak. Because for certain reasons, the separatists had still maintained their nests in our lands, peacekeeping forces had been brought to our region, and this, as they say, gave separatists additional courage. They also believed that in such a situation their separatism could be continued’.
According to Azerbaijan’s Defence Ministry, the first ceasefire violation this year occurred over 5–6 January, with the second time coming on 5 March. The number of accusations then intensified after the finalisation of the peace agreement was announced on 13 March.
Xandie (Alexandra) Kuenning
Russia also said that Armenia’s ‘frozen’ membership in the CSTO ‘does not contribute to strengthening Armenia’s security’.
On Monday, Azerbaijan’s State Security Service detained a TikTok user after he posted footage of military equipment at the Armenian border.
Armenia expressed willingness to investigate any evidence provided by Azerbaijan to support accusations of recent Armenian ceasefire violations.
EU spokesperson Anita Hipper also stated that the EU would continue to support the normalisation of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
