Baku insisted on them even after Yerevan accepted its proposals regarding the last remaining differences on the text of the draft treaty. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry reiterated on Tuesday that a change of Armenia’s constitution remains the “main condition” for signing the peace accord. It also demanded the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group that had been set up in 1992 to deal with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry responded by saying that Yerevan does not object to the group’s dissolution in principle.
“Armenia simply wants to be sure that this means a de facto and de jure end to the conflict and not its transfer to the territory of the Republic of Armenia under the so-called ‘Western Azerbaijan’ discourse,” the ministry spokeswoman, Ani Badalian, told the Armenpress news agency.
Badalian also insisted that the Armenian constitution does not contain territorial claims to Azerbaijan, citing a corresponding conclusion drawn by Armenia’s Constitutional Court last September.
“On the contrary, Armenia believes that it is the constitution of Azerbaijan that contains territorial claims to Armenia,” she said. “But we also believe that the agreed text of the peace treaty resolves this issue.”
The accord, argued Badalian, commits the two states to recognizing each other’s territorial integrity and stipulates that they cannot refer to their domestic legislation to justify their possible failure to implement it.
Despite rejecting the main Azerbaijani precondition in public, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government has pledged to try to enact a new constitution. Armenian opposition leaders say Baku’s demands are the reason why Pashinian wants to do that. They maintain that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has no intention to settle the conflict before clinching further concessions that would prelude Armenia’s very existence as a viable state.
Giving more ammunition to Pashinian’s domestic critics, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry has issued since Sunday at least eight statements that accused Armenian forces of violating the ceasefire along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. The accusations, strongly denied by Yerevan, continued on Wednesday morning. Baku also claimed that the Armenian side is massing troops along the border in preparation for a possible attack on Azerbaijan.
“The only military scenario Armenia can prepare for is to confront possible aggression,” countered Badalian. “This is the legitimate right of any country, and all of Armenia's steps in the border areas fit exclusively into the logic of defense.”
Pashinian’s office likewise said on Tuesday that “the Armenian army has no reason or order to violate the ceasefire.” It noted that Baku has not agreed to joint investigations of reported armed incidents on the border which were proposed by Yerevan last year.
Despite the continuing Azerbaijani demands, Pashinian still held out hope for the quick signing of the peace treaty. “I am ready to affix my signature to that document,” he wrote on social media on Wednesday.