“The key principles are agreed upon, we just need to reproduce that in the text of the peace treaty,” Pashinian told journalists. “And I think we have a chance to finish this job soon.”
“In that reproduction process, there are working issues that can be overcome,” he said without elaborating.
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan has repeatedly complained in recent months that Baku remains reluctant to explicitly recognize Armenia’s borders through the treaty. That has been the main sticking point in Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations on the treaty. Yerevan wants it to uphold the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration in which Armenia, Azerbaijan and other newly independent republics pledged to recognize each other’s Soviet-era territory.
Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov met in Kazakhstan earlier this month for two days of fresh talks on the peace deal. The Armenian Foreign Ministry said afterwards that “there are still differences” between the two sides.
Commenting on Mirzoyan’s statements, Pashinian said: “That text could be somewhat different in terms of a reflection of reality and its perception because there is already a reference to the Alma-Ata Declaration in the agreed parts of the peace treaty. At issue is a slightly different thing which I don’t want to comment on now.”
He again spoke of “statements made from Azerbaijan to the effect that they are committed to the Alma-Ata declaration.”
According to Mirzoyan, another major hurdle to peace is Baku’s continuing demands for an extraterritorial corridor to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave passing through Armenia’s Syunik province.
In addition, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev demanded last month that Armenia change its constitution. This, he said, is a “precondition” for the signing of the treaty.