Pashinyan Says No Mention of Constitutional Amendment or ‘Corridor’ in Peace Deal with Baku
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Wednesday said that there are no references to changes to Armenia’s Constitution or a land route connecting Azerbaijan with Nakhichevan through Armenia in the draft peace agreement with Azerbaijan.
Pashinyan did tell reporters, however, that the two unresolved provisions that both he and President Ilham Aliyev have touched upon still remain points of contention.
The points articulated by both Pashinyan and Aliyev include the removal of third-party forces along the border, with Aliyev specify that his government is referring to the European Union’s mission in Armenia, which last week was extended for another two years. The other aspect is the withdrawal of legal disputes and complaints from international legal forums.
Pashinyan noted that one of the two unresolved points in the negotiations concerns the deployment of third-party forces along the border and the other refers to legal and diplomatic disputes, including complaints filed against each other in legal instances.
His remarks came a day after Armenia’s Foreign Ministry announced that it has received a reply from Azerbaijan on draft proposal sent by Yerevan back in October. Pashinyan did not elaborate on the specifics, but said that his government is “analyzing” Baku’s reply and will react to it later on.
“The two points of disagreement in the document remain the same two points of disagreement,” the Armenian premier told reporters on Wednesday.
Earlier this month when speaking at the Atlantic Council in Washington, Pashinyan signaled his government’s willingness to drop legal cases currently pending in international courts and refrain from filing new cases based on a mutual decision with Baku.
Pashinyan’s statement drew wide-spread criticism from human rights and international law circles, which emphasized that the withdrawal of cases currently pending in international courts, which have been, in the most part, ruled in favor of Armenia, would weaken Armenia’s position and completely would obliterate issues related to the rights of Armenians from Artsakh.
Days after Pashinyan’s declaration in Baku, Azerbaijan filed a new complaint against Armenia accusing it of violating environmental norms and laws in Artsakh.
