The upbeat reports about the peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia may be premature

 Talking to journalists on the sidelines of the 12^th Baku Global Forum on March 13, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov announced the completion of the negotiation process on the text of the peace agreement between Baku and Yerevan. According to him, Armenia has already “accepted Azerbaijan’s proposals on two remaining open issues”.

Let one recall what we are talking about. In December 2024, President Ilham Aliyev spoke about the very two points on which the parties could not reach a compromise, namely, mutual claims in international courts, as well as the deployment of third forces on the state border.

It seems these issues have been removed, at least at the formal level. “Work on the text is complete”, Bayramov announced, adding that “at the next stage, Armenia must eliminate territorial claims against Azerbaijan in its Constitution”. In Yerevan the words of the head of Azerbaijani diplomacy were confirmed at the official level. According to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, “when it became obvious that we would not be able to have ideal wording for these provisions, we held a discussion in the Security Council format and came to the conclusion that the existing content of the document can be considered a compromise solution”.

Moscow welcomes the completion of the negotiations between Yerevan and Baku. It also expressed readiness to send its special representative to the countries to promote Armenian-Azerbaijani normalization, said the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova: “We confirm our proposal to provide a Russian platform for contacts between representatives of Azerbaijan and Armenia on the entire range of issues of Armenian-Azerbaijani normalization, as well as for signing a peace treaty”. Statements in approximately the same tone were heard from other capitals, including Europe, where they are actively trying to intercept the Transcaucasian agenda from Moscow.

In turn US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the announced completion of negotiations on the text of the Armenian-Azerbaijani treaty an opportunity to turn the page on the conflict in accordance with President Trump’s vision of a more peaceful world. The Foreign Ministries of Saudi Arabia and Greece expressed confidence that the signing of the agreement would open the way to cooperation and mutual understanding in the South Caucasus. Similar statements followed from Rome, Warsaw, and Zagreb. Iranian President M. Pezeshkian recalled the importance of preserving the territorial integrity of neighboring countries – as is known, Baku insists on the extraterritorial nature of the proposed Zangezur corridor which could be fraught with unfavorable developments for Tehran on the border with Armenia (Russian border guards have already left the Agarak checkpoint).

However any optimism in assessing the process of signing the Armenian-Azerbaijani agreement and its timing seems somewhat premature. In the long history of the Transcaucasian conflict, this is far from the first episode when the talks were about completing the negotiation process with the signing of peace agreements, which each time failed. Here it is enough to recall at least the “Paris Principles” of 2001, several variations of the “Madrid Principles” of 2007-2009, as well as the meeting in Kazan in the summer of 2011, when Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev put forward a dozen additional demands as preconditions for signing the document that had seemingly already been agreed upon (the list is far from complete).

As is known the 44-day war of 2020 and the final return of Nagorno-Karabakh under the control of Baku in September 2023 radically changed the long-standing status quo in the region. Acting from a position of strength, they make it clear that without changes to the Basic Law of Armenia (the decision of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Armenia on the absence of territorial claims for Baku is clearly not enough) and without Yerevan’s consent to the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group, not only will they not sign any agreement, but they will not conduct negotiations at all.

It is currently too early to talk about signing the document; no meeting of the foreign ministers is planned, says Bayramov’s deputy Elnur Mamedov. According to him, “it is important that all conditions are met. Armenia must stop arming itself and third-party forces must withdraw from the border.” Despite the obvious difference in military potential, a number of Armenia’s defense contracts with French and Indian partners have provoked a harsh reaction from Baku, as have the activities of the European monitoring mission in some areas (Russian border guards withdrew from some points on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2024 by agreement between Yerevan and Moscow). It is characteristic that simultaneously with Bayramov’s statement, speaking at the same global forum President Aliyev declared, no more and no less, and the threat of invasion from Armenia: “… they are increasing their military potential” which allegedly means preparations for a new war.

It can be assumed that in addition to the above-mentioned preconditions, there are others that will be put forward when Baku deems it necessary. For example, the assistant to the President of Azerbaijan, Hikmet Hajiyev mentioned the demand to hand over to Azerbaijan “those hiding in the territory of Armenia” whom the Azerbaijani authorities present as criminals. As the secretary of the “I have the honor” faction, Tigran Abrahamyan, noted in this regard, “this once again shows that Azerbaijan’s goal is not to regulate relations with Armenia, but to finally exclude it from the political map.” Despite the partial delimitation and demarcation of the border in the northern section, the specialized commission co-chaired by Deputy Prime Ministers Sh. Mustafayev and M. Grigoryan still has a lot of work to do; issues of enclaves, the legal status of hypothetical transport corridors, etc. remain unresolved.

Official Baku shows that it does not intend to abandon international lawsuits against Armenia, believes former ombudsman and human rights activist Arman Tatoyan, recalling that during its “trials” Baku estimated “material damage caused by Armenia” at $11 billion, including tens of thousands of units of property and hundreds of settlements. The current authorities, represented by the Civil Contract party and the government of Nikol Pashinyan, say they are ready to begin negotiations on the place and date of signing the document, given that the draft of the new Constitution of Armenia can be put to a referendum at best in the second half of 2026.

Thus one must agree with observers who suggest that the negotiation process may pause, which may turn out to be quite long, while Baku and Yerevan will closely monitor the external situation, trying to gain more in a dynamically changing environment. It is possible that the current White House administration will agree to leave the Caucasus region to Moscow, which is nevertheless forced to take into account the Azerbaijani-Turkish alliance that has clearly strengthened in recent years.

Andrey Areshev, International observer

 

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