Who is Evading the Peace Agreement: Armenia or Azerbaijan?

Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan told Reuters that Yerevan would like to sign the 16 articles agreed with Baku before the UN Climate Conference, which will be held in the Azerbaijani capital from November 11-22.

During a sustainability conference held in Hamburg, he stated: “If it were up to us, we would sign it right now, today. But we hope that sooner or later it will happen.”

Last week, speaking in Warsaw, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan claimed that Azerbaijan lacks the “political will” to sign a peace agreement with Armenia and may be planning additional military operations against it.

“For some reason, due to certain calculations, they keep introducing new preconditions each time, and we see that Baku simply does not want to sign the document… We do not see political will on the Azerbaijani side.”

At the same time, Mirzoyan expressed serious concerns about Azerbaijan’s potential military plans regarding Armenian territories:

“I can give an example. Currently, Azerbaijan is using the term ‘Western Azerbaijan,’ which refers to the territory of Armenia. We are assured that this is not a territorial claim, but unfortunately, the impression is quite different.”

Head of the Press Service of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Aykhan Hajizade, rejected Mirzoyan's remarks:

“At the Warsaw forum, Mirzoyan expressed anti-Azerbaijani views that do not reflect reality.”

Stating that the Warsaw forum was aimed at inciting anti-Azerbaijani sentiment, Hajizade added that during his speech, the Armenian Foreign Minister engaged in disinformation and manipulation.

Political commentator Elkhan Shahinoglu commented on the situation in the program "Complex Question."

He dismissed Mirzoyan’s statements about Azerbaijan's military plans regarding Armenian territories, saying it is not in Azerbaijan's interest.

“Azerbaijan has liberated its occupied territories, and it needs to focus on their restoration. At the same time, any attempt to annex Zangezur will not be accepted by the international community and will create serious problems for Azerbaijan,” Shahinoglu said.

The expert speculated that by withdrawing Armenia’s bid to host COP29 (the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) in favor of Azerbaijan’s candidacy, Pashinyan expected President Ilham Aliyev to sign a peace agreement before November. However, it turned out that Ilham Aliyev does not link the signing of the peace agreement with COP29. It seems Pashinyan realized this quite recently. Now, he and his team are in a hurry to sign at least some document before November. He thinks that if a peace agreement is not signed by then, tensions will rise.

“Previously, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan repeatedly stated Armenia’s readiness to sign a peace agreement. However, unlike Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan, he spoke about signing not 16, but 13 articles agreed with Baku. This means that three more articles of the peace agreement have already been agreed upon. This indicates that Pashinyan is in a rush,” he said, adding that if after COP29 Armenia does not fulfill Azerbaijan’s demand to amend its constitution (removing territorial claims against Azerbaijan contained in Armenia’s fundamental law), the issue will be delayed, and tensions will increase, potentially leading to local clashes.

Azerbaijan, however, remains firm in its demands for Armenia: first, Yerevan must appeal to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and request the dissolution of the Minsk Group for the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict; second, a referendum should be held to remove from the constitution any article containing territorial claims against Azerbaijan, according to Shahinoglu.