In an interview with jam-news.net, a news website focused on the South Caucasus, that was published on August 4 the diplomat did not specify when Armenia and Azerbaijan might sign such a peace treaty, but he stressed that “the only thing missing is the political will needed to reach the finish line.”
Expressing a hope that “with political will and continued effort by all sides the page of enmity and violence can now finally be turned once and for all, for the benefit of all the peoples of the region,” Klaar stressed that the EU had welcomed the December 7, 2023 joint statement by Armenia and Azerbaijan on releases of detainees and the holding of the COP29 climate change summit in Baku in November 2024, as well as the more recent Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements on border delimitation and demarcation of April 19, 2024 with their subsequent implementation.
Reflecting on his decade-long experience in the region, Klaar, who completes his mission as the EU special representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia in September to take up the position of EU ambassador to Uzbekistan, emphasized that the international community would need to remain engaged both politically and financially also after the signature of a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
“But the onus, as now, will remain on the leaderships in Yerevan and Baku to not stop half way, but to continue all the way towards a full normalization of relations, not only between governments, but also between peoples,” he added.
Yerevan has repeatedly said that it stands ready to intensify high-level negotiations and reach the signing of a peace agreement with Baku within a month. Baku, meanwhile, has demanded that Armenia change its Constitution that it claims contains territorial claims against Azerbaijan, warning that otherwise the signing of a peace treaty would not be possible. Baku’s demand is largely viewed in Armenia as an attempt to interfere in the nation’s internal affairs. Referring rather to the need for Armenia to have a basic law passed in a genuinely popular referendum, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has ordered a group of experts to draft a new Constitution by the end of 2026.
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