Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has said that he would seek constitutional reform if the terms of the proposed peace treaty with Azerbaijan violated Armenian law.
Pashinyan’s comments on the Azerbaijani precondition for the signing of the peace deal were interpreted in Azerbaijan as raising questions ‘about the commitment of Armenia to peace’.
He delivered the speech at the Yerevan Dialogue Forum on Monday, organised by the Armenian Foreign Ministry. Talking about the peace process with Azerbaijan, he referred to the two preconditions, which Azerbaijan pushed as the sides agreed on the conditions of the peace treaty on 13 March.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
One of them is the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group structures, which was the main venue for talks between the two sides following the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. The second precondition is the change of Armenia’s Constitution, the preamble of which references Armenia’s Declaration of Independence signed in August 1990. The declaration 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’.
Pashinyan said that the agenda for the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group was ‘acceptable’ to the Armenian government and they were ready to move forward. At the same time, Pashinyan noted that his government wanted to ‘make sure that Azerbaijan does not intend to close the conflict situation on its territory and export it to the territory’ of Armenia.
‘Why do we say this? Because you know that, unfortunately, in recent years, Azerbaijan has begun to call approximately 60% of the sovereign territory of [...] Armenia so-called “Western Azerbaijan” ’, Pashinyan said.
Western Azerbaijan is an irredentist term used by the authorities in Baku to describe the territories in which Azerbaijanis used to live before the conflict with Armenia began.
In turn, Armenia sees the term as territorial claims against Armenia.
Pashinyan presented Armenia’s ‘constructive approach’, suggesting to sign the peace treaty ‘and, in parallel’, apply for the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group.
As for the Armenian constitution, Pashinyan reiterated that it did not contain any territorial claims against Azerbaijan, citing the previous ruling by Armenia’s Constitutional Court.
Meanwhile, Pashinyan noted that, according to law, after signing the peace agreement, it must be submitted to the Constitutional Court. He said that if the court decides that the text of the treaty did not comply with the Armenian constitution, ‘then I will initiate constitutional amendments, because this peace process and the peace agreement should not be missed’.
In his speech, Pashinyan again repeated his conviction ‘that despite all the arguments, all the provocations, etc., there will be no war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, there will be peace’.
He also expressed readiness to continue consultations with Azerbaijan ‘on how to reach the point of signing a peace agreement’.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry swiftly responded to Pashinyan, claiming that his position ‘demonstrat[ed]’ that Armenia was not willing to amend the constitution and ‘to overcome existing challenges in the peace process’, which they claimed ‘raises questions about the commitment of Armenia to peace’.
Regarding the second precondition, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Aykhan Hajizada rejected Armenia’s offer — ‘Overlooking the calls for the formal dissolution of the Minsk Group, tying it to a peace agreement, also raises questions why Armenia, by all means, tries to preserve this outdated mechanism that no longer serves the region’s realities’.
Hajizada also called Pashinyan’s concerns that Azerbaijan might intend to move the conflict to Armenia’s territory ‘purely manipulative’.
‘The references about the Western Azerbaijan Community should not be considered as territorial ambitions’, Hajizada said, instead suggesting that it was an issue of ‘human rights’.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
