Arman Yeghoyan, who represents the ruling Civil Contract party, referred to the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration in which newly independent Soviet republics recognized their Soviet-era borders.
Sargis Khandanian, another Civil Contract deputy heading the Armenian parliament committee on foreign relations, said on Wednesday that the two sides have agreed to include a reference to the declaration in a draft peace treaty discussed by them. Yeghoyan claimed the opposite, however.
“I suppose that Azerbaijan is not willing to set any borders, whereas we want to set the borders that existed during the collapse of the Soviet Union,” he told reporters.
Asked whether this applies to the peace treaty, Yeghoyan said, “No, I’m talking about all [Armenian-Azerbaijani] documents.”
The declaration is referenced in one such agreement that was signed late last week and publicized by the Armenian government on Monday. It involves “regulations” for joint activities of Armenian and Azerbaijani government commissions dealing with the delimitation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. It says that Baku and Yerevan will discard the 1991 document if they agree “in the future” on other principles of delineating their long border.
Earlier on Thursday, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s cabinet formally approved the regulations and decided to ask the Constitutional Court to rule on their conformity with Armenia’s constitution. They will be sent to the Armenian parliament for ratification in the likely event of their validation by the court.
The regulations have still not been made public by the Azerbaijani side. An opposition parliamentarian, Artur Khachatrian, speculated that Baku may drag out their validation process to keep clinching unilateral territorial concessions from Armenia.
“Nikol Pashinian could then go to some [border] area, hold a closed meeting there and say that if we don’t give it away there will be a war,” Khachatrian said, alluding to this spring’s controversial land transfer to Azerbaijan that sparked anti-government protests in Yerevan.
Earlier this week, Azerbaijani officials rejected Pashinian’s proposal to sign an interim deal containing at least 13 of the 17 articles of the draft peace treaty which he says have been agreed upon so far. Another Armenian pro-government lawmaker afterwards accused Baku of “again torpedoing the peace process.”