Azerbaijan on Tuesday said it wouldn’t sign with archrival Armenia a draft peace deal that doesn’t include the non-agreed provisions Baku has been pushing for in negotiations since last year.
"The call of the Armenian officials to sign the draft ‘peace agreement' with the removal of non-agreed provisions, and attempts to postpone the solution of existing problems in bilateral relations to the next stage, are unacceptable," Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Aykhan Hajizada said in a statement.
Describing allegations made by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan during a forum in the Armenian capital Yerevan earlier in the day as "pure distortion of reality," Hajizada said Baku's primary condition for signing the actual peace deal is the removal of territorial claims against Azerbaijan in Armenia's Constitution.
Hajizada said attempts to draw parallels between Azerbaijan's and Armenia's Constitutions are fruitless, adding that Yerevan's reference to the provision that "neither party may invoke its domestic legislation for not implementing its obligations under the peace agreement" to support the idea that its Constitution is harmless is in fact "null and void."
"On the issue of opening up communications, the prime minister of Armenia once again misinterpreted the obligations they had undertaken. Paragraph 9 of the trilateral statement clearly states the obligations of Armenia and how to organize control over transport links," Hajizada added.
He went on to accuse Armenia of "distorting reality" through its claims about Baku's alleged obstruction of the return of refugees and internally displaced persons, as well as claims on the "non-return of prisoners of war" and "ethnic cleansing of local Armenians."
"At the same time, the presentation of migration of the Armenian-origin population to Armenia and other countries after the 2023 anti-terror measures (in liberated Karabakh) is another slander campaign," he also said.
"We call on the Armenian side, which continues aggressive slanderous rhetoric against our country using various platforms, to stop delivering statements that harm prospects for peace," he added.
Armenian officials have not yet commented on the statement.
Azerbaijan and Armenia have been working to sign a peace treaty to end a decadeslong dispute over the Karabakh enclave, which had been illegally occupied by Armenians but is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
The sides fought two wars – in the 1990s and 2020 when Azerbaijan liberated most of the territory during a 44-day war, which ended after a Russian-brokered peace agreement that opened the door to normalization and talks on border demarcation.
Baku in September 2023 recaptured the mountainous enclave in a one-day offensive as separatists surrendered and some 150,000 Karabakh residents returned to Armenia.
The issue of opening transport links in the region, including the Zangezur corridor, a land route connecting Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan, has been a contentious issue in ongoing peace talks.
Baku also insists reaching a peace agreement with Armenia is impossible until Armenia removes in its Constitution a problematic reference to the country's 1991 declaration of independence from the Soviet Union, which proclaims Armenia's unification with Karabakh as a national goal.
The sides have sporadically exchanged fire along their troubled border in recent months, stoking concerns that an agreement could be further delayed.
Pashinyan on Tuesday said Yerevan and Baku have managed to agree on 13 articles and preface of the draft peace agreement and that Armenian authorities propose to sign the already agreed points, which so far includes a provision on "establishing diplomatic relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan."
In June, he claimed Armenia "needs a new constitution" because the current one "doesn't reflect citizens' vision of the relations with neighboring countries."