“Western Azerbaijan” Cannot Exist Within the Sovereign Territory of the Republic of Armenia – Pashinyan

YEREVAN — There is no such thing as “Western Azerbaijan” within the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia, and there cannot be. This was stated by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan during the second “Yerevan Dialogue” international conference.

He added that any discussion of this notion is unacceptable for Yerevan, which, according to the Prime Minister, is a legitimate stance.

Addressing another demand from Baku — namely, the need to change Armenia’s Constitution — Pashinyan noted that if the Constitutional Court of Armenia determines that the peace agreement is not in line with the Constitution, then he would initiate constitutional amendments.

“Overall, it is clear that neither party should have territorial claims against the other, and that is a very important precondition for peace. Let us examine the issue carefully and understand whether Armenia’s Constitution does in fact contain territorial claims against Azerbaijan.

The only institution that can officially determine what is or isn’t contained in Armenia’s Constitution is the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Armenia.

Last year, we were able to sign a regulation between the Armenian and Azerbaijani border delimitation commissions. It was the first bilateral international document in history signed by both Armenia and Azerbaijan. According to Armenian legislation, we submitted the document to our Constitutional Court to determine whether it conformed to the Constitution.

In September of last year, the Constitutional Court reviewed the regulation and found that the Alma-Ata Declaration — referenced in the document as a fundamental principle for the delimitation process — was fully compatible with Armenia’s Constitution. Therefore, both the regulation and the Alma-Ata Declaration are in full compliance with our constitutional framework.

This means there are no territorial claims against any neighbor within Armenia’s Constitution. The territories of Armenia and Azerbaijan today are the same as those of Soviet Armenia and Soviet Azerbaijan,” Pashinyan emphasized.

“We propose signing the peace treaty and, in parallel, appealing to the OSCE to begin the process of dissolving the Minsk Group structures. I believe this is a constructive proposal — to have both documents on the table and sign them simultaneously, at the same time, in the same place,” Prime Minister Pashinyan reiterated.