It is impossible for Azerbaijan to conclude a peace deal with archenemy Armenia while the latter’s current Constitution remains unchanged, according to President Ilham Aliyev.
The topic of Armenia's territorial claims against Azerbaijan and Türkiye is one of several open issues remaining in the peace agreement discussed between Baku and Yerevan, Aliyev said Thursday at a meeting with parliament speakers of the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic States in Baku.
Azerbaijan has never had any territorial claims against any country, including Armenia, Aliyev claimed.
"They must completely abandon the ideas of revanchism, and we see that such ideas exist not only in the opposition but also in the government. All these issues, of course, need to be clarified and regulated," he said.
Aliyev also indicated that Azerbaijan proposed to Armenia to jointly apply to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to cancel the OSCE Minsk Group because it is "not functioning now."
"We will not de facto allow it to operate. It remains for it to be canceled de jure – legally, and this will show how sincere Armenia is. If Armenia prefers to maintain the Minsk Group, then their territorial claims against us will continue," he said.
Aliyev added that Armenia's recent return of four border villages in Azerbaijan shows that issues between the two countries can be resolved peacefully through negotiations.
"If Armenia had listened to our words in 2020 and returned our lands peacefully, there would be no need for the Second Karabakh War and the anti-terrorist operation. That is, it should be a lesson for them, and I see that they, as they say, draw conclusions from that lesson," he said.
Established in 1992, the unsuccessful OSCE Minsk Group, chaired by France, Russia and the U.S., aimed to facilitate the resolution of the decadeslong Karabakh conflict.
Azerbaijan and Armenia are currently working to normalize their relations after Azerbaijan regained full control of the Karabakh province that had been under the illegal occupation of Armenia-backed ethnic Armenian separatists since the 1990s.
A six-week war in 2020 resulted in Azerbaijan liberating large parts of the breakaway region, and in September 2023, Azerbaijani forces launched a lighting blitz that forced Karabakh's Armenian "authorities" to capitulate in negotiations mediated by Russian forces.
Since December, the sides have been struggling to begin negotiations on a peace treaty, key parts for which were demarcating borders and establishing regional transport corridors through each other's territory.
In a historic breakthrough, Armenia returned four border villages, which were seized in the 1990s, to Azerbaijan late last month. The sides also agreed on the new demarcation of 12.7 kilometers (almost 7 miles) of their border, returning the villages of Baghanis Ayrum, Ashaghi Askipara, Kheyrimli and Ghizilhajili to Azerbaijan.
Although the move sparked protracted protests in Armenia, it’s hailed as a move toward reaching a comprehensive peace agreement after years of fruitless talks mediated by Russia and Western countries.
The territory ceded back by Yerevan is of strategic importance for landlocked Armenia because it controls sections of a vital highway to Georgia.
Armenian residents of nearby settlements say the move could cut them off from the rest of the country and accuse Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of unilaterally giving back territory without getting anything in return.
Azerbaijan and Armenia still have other unresolved territorial disputes. These are mostly focused on enclaves that the two sides want the other party to relinquish control of or provide access to.
Aliyev’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said Wednesday there are fewer open issues on the draft peace deal being discussed between the neighbors.
"I can point out that there is a decrease in the number of items of the open issues in the draft agreement," Bayramov said at a news conference with his visiting Hungarian counterpart, Peter Szijjarto, in Baku.
Expressing that Azerbaijan presented a redacted version of the next draft to Armenia, which was discussed during talks in the Kazakh city of Almaty last month, Bayramov said Baku received the next draft from Yerevan days ago.
"A number of items have reached the point where positive development can be observed. This is not just the re-sending of past projects. That is, we are observing a positive dynamic here," he said.
Bayramov and his Armenian counterpart, Ararat Mirzoyan, held talks on May 10 in Almaty where the two sides agreed to continue negotiations on controversial issues.
Bayramov also touched on remarks by Mirzoyan on Tuesday, rejecting his attempts to draw parallels between Azerbaijan and Armenia's Constitutions due to the presence of territorial claims in Armenia's Constitution against neighboring countries.
Mirzoyan said during a parliamentary session that constitutional changes are not on the agenda of the negotiations, and both countries see "significant problems and obstacles in the constitution of the other."
"There are no territorial claims against neighboring countries and Armenia in the Constitution of Azerbaijan and other legislative acts. Therefore, attempts to create parallelism in this matter are unacceptable," said Bayramov.
