After the recent violence, we managed to reach an agreement: Mirzoyan

Ararat Mirzoyan, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia, has announced in an interview with Turkish media that Armenia and Azerbaijan have managed to reach an agreement on the text of the peace treaty, and it is fully ready for signing.

“This, I would say, is a historic event, an unprecedented thing. Imagine, after a long-standing conflict, after the violence that occurred in our region, we were able to come to an agreement on the text. We suggested starting consultations with our Azerbaijani counterparts immediately to determine the time and place for the signing ceremony. However, unfortunately, we notice that Azerbaijan has a somewhat different perception of the issue. They believe that Armenia should take certain additional steps for the signing of the treaty to become possible. For example, the issue of the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group is mentioned. Our position is that we are fully prepared to initiate the process of dissolving the OSCE Minsk Group. Our understanding is that if there is no longer a conflict, and the Minsk Group was established precisely for this conflict, then the need for the existence of that group also disappears. However, we must have, so to speak, an institutional end to the conflict, which will be the signing and ratification of the peace treaty. Therefore, we have suggested to our Azerbaijani counterparts to sign two documents on the same day – first, the peace treaty between our two countries, and then a joint application to the relevant secretariat of the OSCE regarding our willingness to start the dissolution process of the Minsk Group,” he said.

According to Mirzoyan, the Azerbaijani counterparts also continuously refer to the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia, demanding changes to the Armenian Constitution. “They say that in the preamble of our Constitution, we have a reference to our Declaration of Independence, which is true, and in which, according to them, we have territorial claims against their territorial integrity, which is not quite accurate, since only those parts of the Declaration of Independence that are literally quoted in the Constitution have binding legal force in the sense of the Constitution. Moreover, the agreement we are preparing to sign addresses this issue. Thus, to fully understand the situation, I need to provide a bit more detail.

Under the agreement, the parties mutually recognize each other's territorial integrity within the borders that existed between our countries as Soviet Socialist Republics at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which later became internationally recognized borders. This provision fully addresses the concerns of the Azerbaijani side, which in itself has allowed us to reach agreement on the text of the treaty. At the same time, it is fully aligned with our understandings.

If we sign this agreement and it is sent for ratification, then as part of that process it must be sent to the Constitutional Court for a conclusion, an opinion. That is our legal procedure. If our Constitutional Court records that this point, this wording fully complies with the Constitution – that is, it does not contain any territorial claims beyond the borders, which is acceptable to the Azerbaijani side and recognized by the international community – then this means that there is no problem. Thus, the answer, the solution is not outside of the peace treaty, but rather inside it. And the shortest way to address the issue is the signing and ratification of the peace treaty.

At the same time, I can note that theoretically, of course, the possibility of a negative conclusion by the Constitutional Court is not excluded, that the corresponding point does not comply with the Constitution. Nevertheless, I have serious grounds to assume that most likely the court will express a positive position. And this is, I must mention, a really remarkable circumstance. A few months ago, in September, our Constitutional Court expressed an opinion regarding such a question. We signed another document between Armenia and Azerbaijan. It was the first international document ever signed between the two countries – the regulations for the operation of delimitation commissions. In that regulation, our two states again agreed that the basis for delimitation should be the Almaty Declaration, which essentially repeats the idea I already mentioned – the borders should be those that existed at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Thus, again, for the ratification of the document, we appealed to our Constitutional Court, and our Constitutional Court declared that it fully complies with our Constitution. Therefore, I have good reason to assume that in the case of the peace treaty, which states the same thing, there is a high likelihood that our Constitutional Court will again say that it complies with our Constitution. Therefore, there is no problem.

At the same time, we see and have our own concerns regarding Azerbaijan’s Constitution. And, again, let me explain. This is not just a mirror reflection. In their Constitution, they have a reference to their Declaration of Independence. Thus, in their Declaration of Independence, they declare that the current Republic of Azerbaijan is the successor to the first Azerbaijani (Democratic) Republic, not the Soviet one. And the first Azerbaijani Republic, which existed before the Soviet Union, declared its sovereignty over much larger territories than today’s Azerbaijan. It includes more than 60% of today’s sovereign territories of Armenia. Therefore, we see that we have our own concerns, but why do we not continually raise this issue? Because, as I mentioned earlier, in the case of our Constitution, the solution is within the peace treaty. We sign it and resolve the issue. That’s it.

Returning to the main question, I must note that we are very constructive, very flexible. We have done a lot of work on this text. Now it is ready for signing. There is no peace agreement in the world that answers all possible questions. If two societies have a history of enmity, conflicts, they cannot resolve everything with one document. The peace treaty envisions the creation of a bilateral mechanism – a commission that will monitor the implementation of the treaty, as well as address all the possible difficulties and bumps that may and, most likely, will arise during the process. In other words, we are forming a toolkit to manage those challenges. Therefore, the expectation that all possible questions should be resolved before the signing of the peace treaty is, in our assessment, neither fair nor realistic,” emphasized Mirzoyan.