Armenia said on Thursday that it was ready to sign a peace treaty with historic arch-foe Azerbaijan.
"Armenia is ready to finalize the document of the peace treaty with Azerbaijan and sign it within a month," Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said at a news conference in the capital, Yerevan.
According to his assessment, however, Baku has not clearly expressed a mutual willingness to take such a step.
His Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov on Thursday admitted to “significant progress” in creating a draft, namely a decrease in standing issues, but added: “Armenia continues its territorial claims toward Azerbaijani lands. For us, this is the most serious obstacle to completing the process.”
Azerbaijan and Armenia are currently working to normalize their relations after Azerbaijan regained full control of the Karabakh province that had been under the illegal occupation of Armenia-backed ethnic Armenian separatists since the 1990s.
A six-week war in 2020 resulted in Azerbaijan liberating large parts of the breakaway region and in September 2023, Azerbaijani forces launched a lighting blitz that forced Karabakh's Armenian "authorities" to capitulate in negotiations mediated by Russian troops.
Since December, the sides have been struggling to begin negotiations on a peace treaty, key parts for which were demarcating borders and establishing regional transport corridors through each other's territory.
In a historic breakthrough, Armenia returned four border villages, which were seized in the 1990s, to Azerbaijan late last month. The sides also agreed on the new demarcation of 12.7 kilometers (almost 7 miles) of their border, returning the villages of Baghanis Ayrum, Ashaghi Askipara, Kheyrimli and Ghizilhajili to Azerbaijan.
Although the move sparked protests in Armenia, it’s hailed as a move toward reaching a comprehensive peace agreement after years of fruitless talks mediated by Russia and Western countries.
Speaking at a joint news conference with his Georgian counterpart in Tbilisi on Thursday, Bayramov praised a series of positive developments with Armenia in recent years.
But Armenia’s “territorial claims” should be considered “unpleasant,” and Yerevan “must take steps” about the issue, Bayramov said.
Armenia and Azerbaijan still have other unresolved territorial disputes, mostly regarding enclaves that the two sides want the other party to relinquish control or provide access to.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly demanded that Armenia change its constitution to remove an indirect reference to Karabakh independence before inking a peace deal.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has said Yerevan would not accept Baku’s demands to change its constitution.
Armenian media cited Pashinyan as saying that the insistence on constitutional amendments represented an attempt at "torpedoing" the peace process, even though he said the deal's prospects remained good.
