Armenia and Azerbaijan have not yet agreed on the date or location for signing their long-awaited peace agreement, but Yerevan says it is ready to begin consultations “immediately.”
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan told reporters that while Armenia remains open to logistical discussions, it firmly rejects Azerbaijan’s precondition for signing the treaty – a demand that Yerevan amend its constitution.
“There is no fixed date or venue for signing. But right now, I am ready to begin consultations about where and when we will sign,” Mirzoyan said.
“Of course, it’s no secret that the Azerbaijani side has a condition regarding this. We do not accept it and do not consider it a subject for discussion. I hope that in the near future, the process will evolve in such a way that we take this step toward institutionalizing peace.”
The Armenian foreign minister added that, in his view, peace between Yerevan and Baku already exists, and that the eventual signing of the treaty will be “a technical matter.”
Mirzoyan stressed that Armenia cannot agree to any external demand to alter its constitution.
“They have a very specific condition under which they envision signing this agreement. We do not share that approach,” he said. “We say that peace is already established – that we can agree on a thousand issues, but not on this one. They say our constitution has a problem; we say it does not. There is no mutual understanding here.”
While the Armenian government insists it will not amend the constitution under pressure from Azerbaijan, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and other officials have acknowledged that constitutional reform is under discussion – though, they claim, for reasons unrelated to Baku’s demands.
Armenia’s opposition, however, argues that such changes would effectively fulfill Azerbaijan’s precondition for finalizing the treaty.
The peace accord – formally initialed in Washington on August 8 by the foreign ministers of both countries followed a trilateral meeting between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and U.S. President Donald Trump. Pashinyan later declared that “peace has already been established in the region.”
