Constitutional disputes are hindering the peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Within the framework of the Antalya Diplomatic Forum, the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Ararat Mirzoyan and Jeyhun Bayramov, exchanged criticism of the Constitutions of the two countries. The representative of Yerevan fears that the neighbors, relying on their Basic Law, may try to seize a significant part of his country. The Baku envoy, in turn, is confident that the Armenian Constitution will devalue the peace treaty.

“The Declaration of Independence of Armenia states that part of the territory of Azerbaijan is reunited with Armenia, and the Constitution of Armenia refers to this declaration. The peace agreement solves many issues, but no matter what international obligations are enshrined in the peace agreement, it has a higher legal force than domestic legislation, with the exception of the country’s Constitution and acts adopted by the referendum,” Bayramov stressed.

In this regard, according to him, if the Basic Law of Armenia is not changed, the peace treaty will be invalid from the first day. “Is the Armenian population ready to put an end to territorial claims against its neighbors or not?” the Azerbaijani Foreign Minister asked.

Ararat Mirzoyan retorted, noting that only those provisions of the declaration are valid, which are verbatim fixed in the Constitution, and Karabakh is not in it.

“In September last year, our Constitutional Court concluded that the delimitation of the border is based on a declaration. It says that our borders are the same borders that existed between the Soviet socialist republics at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union. If we sign this agreement, the agreement will be sent to the Constitutional Court of Armenia as part of the ratification process. If our Constitutional Court says again that this document complies with our Constitution, then there is no need for any additional evidence that the issue has been resolved. This is again a matter of political will: are we building peace or not?” said Mirzoyan.

In addition, he noted that Yerevan has concerns about the Constitution of Azerbaijan. Moreover, the problems are also in the reference to the Declaration of Independence. Only in the case of Baku, we are not talking about a specific territory, but about declaring the country the legal successor of the first Republic of Azerbaijan, which included a significant part of Armenia.

“Mirzoyan’s argument that they also have concerns about our Constitution is not true. The Constitution of Azerbaijan does not mention the geographical name of any territory of Armenia, and the Armenian side knows this very well. I don’t think our Armenian colleagues sincerely believe that there are territorial claims to Armenia in the Constitution of Azerbaijan, and they haven’t raised this issue for so long,” Bayramov said.

At the same time, Mirzoyan agreed to dissolve the OSCE Minsk Group (MG). However, according to him, this should be done after the signing of the peace treaty. “We must sign an agreement, end this conflict institutionally and dissolve (the OSCE Minsk Group. – “NG”) on the same day, if you want. Or with a difference of 10 minutes… Let’s sign these documents one by one. And I’m not even saying which document to sign first. Let’s sign a peace treaty. Let’s submit a joint statement to the OSCE member states or the OSCE secretariat on the dissolution,” the Armenian Foreign Minister suggested.

Chairman of the Board of the Center for the Analysis of International Relations Farid Shafiev told NG that changing the Constitution of Armenia is a key requirement of Baku, without which it will not sign a peace treaty. At the same time, the Azerbaijani leadership is not embarrassed that in the future the Basic Law of the neighboring country may be rewritten.

“Of course, no Constitution remains intact. Its change is a historical process. But here we are not talking about any internal affairs, but about territorial claims. If Armenia somehow returns the mention of Karabakh to its Constitution in the future, the peace treaty will lose its force. The Armenian side is trying to say that the Azerbaijani Constitution is also not all right because of the reference to 1918, but no Azerbaijani document mentions the Armenian territories,” Shafiev said.

At the same time, the expert noted that the Armenian authorities’ statement regarding the decision of the Constitutional Court of the republic is broken by the history of Robert Kocharyan’s presidency. He could not lead the country, as he lived in Nagorno-Karabakh, but in the 1990s, local Themis considered Stepanakert to be Armenia.

“Baku is hardly seriously concerned about the reference in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, created in 1990 and immediately recognized as illegal by the USSR. Rather, it is one of the ways Azerbaijan exerts pressure on Armenia,” Alexander Iskandaryan, head of the Caucasus Institute, told NG. He believes that Nikol Pashinyan’s government’s attempt to hold a constitutional referendum will fail.