The draft Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and Interstate Relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan has been agreed upon, and negotiations on the agreement on the draft have been completed. This means that we have entered the stage of discussions on the signing of the agreement, and I have declared that I am ready to put my signature on behalf of the people of Armenia to the agreement.
Azerbaijan officially links the signing of the agreement with two issues. The first of them is the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group structures. I have repeatedly said that this is an understandable agenda for the Republic of Armenia.
If we close the page of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and we do, what is the point of having a structure dealing with that conflict? But the OSCE Minsk Group, at least de facto, has a broader context, and we want to be sure that Azerbaijan does not view the dissolution of the Minsk Group as a step towards closing the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict on the territory of Azerbaijan and transferring it to the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia.
To dispel this concern, we propose to Azerbaijan to sign the Peace Agreement and the joint application to the OSCE on the dissolution of the Minsk Group structures simultaneously. That is, to put the Peace Agreement and the joint application on the dissolution of the Minsk Group structures on the table and sign both the first and the second in the same place, at the same time. This, by the way, is an official proposal.
The next issue that Azerbaijan raises in the context of signing the Peace Agreement is its claim that the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia contains territorial claims against Azerbaijan. I think that in order to correctly position ourselves on this issue, we should first try to proceed from the assumption that Azerbaijan raises this issue as a sincere concern, and not as an excuse not to sign the Peace Agreement, as some experts think.
We ourselves must honestly understand the essence of the issue, its political and legal content. And therefore, we must state that only the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Armenia can give an official interpretation of the text of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia, that is, the Constitutional Court is the body that can officially say what the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia contains and what it does not contain.
In September 2024, our Constitutional Court examined the Regulation on the joint activities of the Commission on the Demarcation of the State Border and Border Security between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan and the State Commission on the Demarcation of the State Border between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Armenia and recorded that the regulations, where the Alma-Ata Declaration is recorded as the basic principle of the demarcation of the border between the two countries, comply with the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia.
This means that our Constitutional Court has recorded that the principle of the Alma-Ata Declaration, according to which the territory of independent Armenia is identical to the territory of Soviet Armenia, and the territory of independent Azerbaijan is identical to the territory of Soviet Azerbaijan, and on the basis of which the parties agreed to normalize relations in Prague on October 6, 2022, fully complies with the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia.
And therefore, the body authorized to interpret the Constitution of Armenia has determined by an irrevocable decision that there are no territorial claims against Azerbaijan or any other country in the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia. I repeat, this is a decision with the highest legal force and it is irrevocable.
But on the other hand, as I have had occasion to say, we, in our turn, see territorial claims against the Republic of Armenia in the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan. But we do not raise this issue, because the draft agreement on peace and interstate relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan contains the necessary formulations that resolve the issue, recording that the parties have no territorial claims to each other and undertake not to put forward such claims in the future, with the understanding that the two countries recognize each other’s territorial integrity in line with the territory of the Soviet Republics, as stated in the Alma-Ata Declaration.
So, if we assume that Azerbaijan’s position regarding our Constitution is not an excuse for something else, but a sincere concern, the most effective way to dispel that concern is not to not sign the agreement, but to sign it. Why?
Because according to our legislation, the Government is obliged to send the text of the Peace Agreement to the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Armenia to verify its compliance with our Constitution.
Although experts do not consider such a possibility to be high after the Constitutional Court's decision of 2025, but if the Constitutional Court decides that the text of the Peace Agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan does not comply with the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia, then the Republic of Armenia will have a specific situation with a necessity to make a choice between peace and conflict.
But if the Constitutional Court of Armenia decides that the text of the Peace Agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan complies with the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia, in that case there will be no obstacle to ratifying the Agreement in the National Assembly and after ratification in the parliament, Article 5, Paragraph 3 of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia will come into effect, which states: “In case of conflict between the norms of international treaties ratified by the Republic of Armenia and those of laws, the norms of international treaties shall apply''.
This means that the Peace Agreement will acquire the highest legal force in Armenia, as well as in Azerbaijan, after ratification, and, therefore, with its current position on the Peace Agreement, Azerbaijan is hindering the resolution of the issues it has raised itself, and this is what gives many experts reason to say that Azerbaijan is simply delaying the signing of the Peace Agreement under fabricated pretexts.
In order not to be misunderstood, I would like to emphasize again: irrespective of the interpretation, the way to address the issues raised by Azerbaijan is not to not sign the Peace Agreement, but to sign it. And since we also have similar questions, the same applies to the Republic of Armenia.
P.S. Despite all the difficulties and complications, the Government and I personally will not deviate from the Peace Agenda. It is obvious that some forces both in Armenia and outside Armenia are carrying out daily propaganda for war and are taking specific actions aimed at bringing it to life. Among these actions, Azerbaijan’s war rhetoric stands out, along with the rhetoric, which is expressed in false accusations of ceasefire violations against Armenia and frequent, if not daily, ceasefire violations by the Azerbaijani armed forces. These violations are mainly of an untargeted nature, although two specific cases of targeting the village of Khnatsakh in the Syunik region have been recorded over the past month.
However, untargeted shots have been heard in several settlements of our republic during this period. The mentioned shots are either a consequence of indiscipline in the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, or are aimed at exerting psychological pressure on the population of the mentioned settlements. The Republic of Armenia calls on the Republic of Azerbaijan to investigate the above-mentioned cases and take measures to stop them.
I reiterate that I have given the Armenian army a clear order not to violate the ceasefire regime, and the Republic of Armenia is ready to investigate information about the violation of the ceasefire regime by our army. At the same time, I once again propose to Azerbaijan to create a joint mechanism for investigating border incidents, including violations of the ceasefire regime, which will operate on a daily basis.
In this context, I consider it necessary to address all those statements that predict a new escalation and even a new war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
There is no justification for war. Armenia and Azerbaijan have recognized each other's territorial integrity, sovereignty, the inviolability of internationally recognized borders, and the inadmissibility of the use of force and the threat of force.
Based on these realities, I call on all forces and individuals operating in Armenia and Azerbaijan to be extremely responsible, not to make statements that directly or indirectly contradict the aforementioned logic, and not to question this logic. This leads to nowhere.
The peoples of Armenia and Azerbaijan deserve peace and peaceful coexistence. There will be no war, there will be peace.
