Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan referred to the peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan in an interview with Turkish media.
“This is part of the Armenia-Türkiye general conversation as well. As you noted, we have managed to agree on the text of the draft peace agreement, and it's completely ready to sign. This is quite an achievement. This is, I would say, a historic event, an unprecedented thing. Imagine Armenia and Azerbaijan after long years of conflict, after the blood that we have seen in our region, we managed, we succeeded to agree on a text.
Now, we suggested immediately to start consultations with our Azerbaijani colleagues, to start consultations to define the venue and the date of the signing ceremony. Unfortunately, we see that Azerbaijan has a little bit different perception of the issue. They think that Armenia should implement some other things to make the signing possible.
For instance, they mentioned the dissolution of the Minsk Group of OSCE. And our perception, our response is that we are completely ready to start, initiate the process of dissolution of the Minsk Group of OSCE. Օur understanding is that if there is no conflict, and the Minsk Group is about conflict, then there is no need for this Minsk Group as well. But we should see, if I may say so, the institutionalized ending of the conflict, which is the signing and ratification of the peace treaty. So we believe and we suggested, we proposed to our Azerbaijani colleagues to sign two documents on the same day. First, the Peace Treaty, the peace agreement between our two countries, and secondly, a joint application to the respective secretariat of OSCE about our intention to initiate this process of dissolution of the Minsk Group.
Also, our Azerbaijani colleagues make continuous references to the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia. They demand an amendment in our Constitution. They say that in our Constitution, in the preambular part of it, we have a reference to our Act of Independence, which is true, in which we have a territorial claim against their territorial integrity, which is a little bit not true, because only those parts of our Act of Declaration of Independence are valid in the sense of Constitution, which are literally quoted in the Constitution. Moreover, the agreement which we are going to sign addresses the issue. So, here I need to give a little bit more details for you to fully understand the situation.
So, in the agreement, we recognize each other's territorial integrity within the borders that existed between our countries as Soviet Socialist Republics at the time, at the moment of dissolution of the Soviet Union, and then they became internationally recognized borders. So, this fully addresses the concerns of the Azerbaijani side, otherwise they wouldn't have agreed over the text, and this fully addresses also our perception.
If we sign this treaty, during and within the process of ratification, it should go to our Constitutional Court for a conclusion, for an opinion. This is our legal procedure. So, if our Constitutional Court says that this sentence, this provision fully complies with our Constitution – I mean not having any territorial claim beyond the borders, which is acceptable for Azerbaijani side, which is internationally recognized – if the Constitutional Court says that this sentence, this provision complies with our Constitution, that means there is no issue. So, the answer, the solution is not beyond the peace agreement, but it is within, it is inside the peace agreement. And the shortest way to address the issue is to sign and ratify this peace treaty.
At the same time, and I can say that, of course, theoretically there is a possibility that the Constitutional Court gives a negative conclusion: they say that this does not comply with the Constitution. But I have a solid basis to say that most probably they will say yes, they will give a positive opinion, because, and this is very interesting, several months ago, in September, our Constitutional Court gave an opinion on a very similar issue. We had another document signed between Armenia and Azerbaijan. This was the first ever international document signed between the two countries. This was the regulation of joint works of respective border commissions, in other words, the delimitation commissions. So, in this regulation, we, the two countries, again agreed that the basis of the delimitation should be the Alma-Ata Declaration, which says almost the same, which I just quoted: the borders are those which existed at the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
So, again, to ratify the document, we applied to our Constitutional Court, and our Constitutional Court said that this fully complies with our Constitution. So, I have a solid ground to suppose that in case of the peace agreement, which says the same thing, there is a good chance that our Constitutional Court will again say that this corresponds to our Constitution. So, there is no issue.
In parallel, we see and have our own concerns regarding the Azerbaijani Constitution. And, again, I will explain. This is not just a mere mirroring of the issue. In their Constitution, they have a reference to their Act of Independence. So, in their Act of Independence, they declare that this Republic of Azerbaijan is the successor of the first Azerbaijani (Democratic) Republic, not the Soviet one. And the first Azerbaijani Republic, which existed before the Soviet Union, declared their sovereignty over much larger territories than today's Azerbaijan. It includes more than 60% of today's Armenian sovereign territories. So, we see, we have our own concerns, but why aren't we raising this issue continuously? Because we see, as I said before, in the case of our Constitution, the solution is in the peace agreement. We sign it, and we address the issue. That's it.
So, coming back to the main issue, we are very constructive. We are very flexible. We have worked hard to have this text. Now it's ready to sign. There is no single peace agreement in the world that addresses all possible issues. If the two societies, any two societies, have the history of enmity, history of hostilities, they cannot solve everything by one document. And in our peace agreement, we establish a bilateral mechanism, a bilateral commission, to oversee the implementation of the agreement, to handle all possible hardships, turbulences, which can and definitely will occur. But we establish a mechanism to manage this process. So, again, the expectation that all possible questions should be answered before they can sign, I would say, is not fair and is not realistic.
I think this is important for everybody to understand all the nuances. Otherwise, you won't have a clear picture of where we are currently. Yes, we do negotiate because there is no other option. Which is the alternative of negotiations, if we do have a peace agenda?
So, we continue the conversation. As for the venue, you know, it's not important. There is an idea to sign it on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. There are several other capitals who suggest their services. I'm not excluding anything. I haven't got that proposal. I'm not excluding anything”, Mirzoyan said.
