Brussels -One can sense the air of historic moments in the South Caucasus. Armenia and Azerbaijan seem on the verge of signing a peace agreement that would end almost 40 years of conflict in the war-torn region, which is at the center of the interests of several international players. The details of the understanding have not been made public, but obstacles remain on the road to complete pacification and diplomatic normalization between the two capitals.
The announcement of the understanding
The foreign ministers of Yerevan and Baku said yesterday (March 13) that they had reached an agreement in principle on the substantive terms of a peace treaty by which the two Caucasian countries could turn the page on a bitter conflict that has been going on for 37 years and has caused tens of thousands of deaths as well as the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people on both sides. However, there is no exact timetable for the conclusion of the historic agreement, which remains pending.
Azerbaijani diplomacy chief Jeyhun Bayramov was the first to announce the completion of the negotiations on the agreement’s text: “The negotiation process on the text of the peace agreement with Armenia has been concluded,” he said yesterday. Soon after, his Armenian counterpart, Ararat Mirzoyan, confirmed that “the peace agreement is ready for signing.” According to Armenian sources, Yerevan had proposed drafting a joint statement, but Baku reportedly unilaterally decided to move forward.
Be that as it may, the agreement allowed the settlement of the last two disputed points among the 17 recently discussed between the parties, which since late last summer have been moving toward a political recomposition of the decade-long crisis. Specifically, they involve the expulsion of international observers (including those from the EU) stationed along the border between the two countries – currently closed and heavily militarized – and abandoning ongoing legal disputes in multilateral forums.
“We congratulate both sides,” according to a statement from the European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU’s Foreign Office. “It is key to keep this momentum and ensure smooth completion of this process with the same forward-looking and compromise-oriented approach,” the note continues.
The territorial issues
The main issue underlying the bloody conflict that began in 1988 (even before the dissolution of the USSR, of which they were both part), namely the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, seems to have been resolved since Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan officially recognized Azerbaijani sovereignty over the area in September 2023.
The region, within Azerbaijani territory but historically populated by Armenians and controlled by Yerevan-backed separatists, had long been disputed between the two countries. After several phases of war, alternating with periods of relative stability in which the conflict seemed frozen, Baku took back complete control in September of two years ago through a blitzkrieg operation that resulted in a major humanitarian crisis, the expulsion of the Armenian population, and the end of the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh.
Now, the Azerbaijani government is calling for the disbandment of the so-called Minsk Group, an OSCE format coordinated by France, Russia, and the United States within which negotiations between the two Caucasian nations took place until 2020 when the second Nagorno-Karabakh War erupted.
In contrast, the question of Nakhchivan, an Azerbaijani exclave separated from the rest of the Caucasian state by a strip of Armenian land, would remain open: Baku would like to connect it to the rest of its territory via a land corridor that would pass through Armenia, but for the moment there is no news of any progress on the dossier.
The issue of the Armenian Constitution
Furthermore, the understanding does not address the long-standing issue of the amendments to the Armenian Constitution: Azerbaijan has long insisted that the removal of specific references to the country’s declaration of independence (which, Baku argues, minimizes Azerbaijani territorial integrity) is a precondition for the conclusion of a comprehensive peace treaty.
Although Armenia denies that its fundamental charter poses any threat to its neighbor, Pashinyan recently announced its intention to adopt a new constitution. However, there is still no timetable for the process, which should include both parliamentary passage and a popular referendum.
Regional geopolitics
The South Caucasus region, to which Georgia also belongs and which overlooks the Black Sea on one side and the Caspian Sea on the other, has great strategic significance (because of its location and rich oil and natural gas deposits) and is therefore at the center of an entanglement of geopolitical interests of players such as Russia, Turkey, the United States, and the European Union.
In recent years, Armenia has been trying to move away from the Russian orbit (within which it has historically moved since independence) and get closer to the EU, with which deepened diplomatic, political, and military ties. For that matter, Brussels always pushed for the negotiation process between the two neighbors, even employing a peacekeeping mission along the Armenian border that would, however, be dismantled.
Azerbaijan, on the other hand, has become a significant energy partner of the 27 member states after the large-scale invasion of Ukraine (Azerbaijani gas arrives in Italy transported through TAP). Although democratic standards are not exceptionally high, Baku hosted the UN Climate Conference (COP29) in November.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
