The section described Karabakh as “an integral part of historical Armenia,” asserted its ethnic Armenian population’s right to self-determination and said that Azerbaijan has no “legal, political or moral grounds” to restore its control of the region.
A senior aide to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev complained about these references when he spoke to RFE/RL in February. He listed them among documents and statements which he said testify to continuing Armenian territorial claims to Azerbaijan.
Access to the website section was blocked four days later. The Armenian Foreign Ministry declined to say at the time whether it did so under Azerbaijani pressure. A ministry spokeswoman said only that the Karabakh-related content was “not removed from the website” and that it “will be displayed in due course.”
The page is still not accessible. Late last month, RFE/RL’s Armenian Service asked the Foreign Ministry in writing give the reasons for this fact and clarify whether the information in question will be deleted from its website.
The ministry replied five days later that it needs 30 more days to answer these questions “given the need to do additional work.” It has not sent the answers yet.
The Armenian government stopped championing the Karabakh Armenians’ right to self-determination a year before Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian declared in May 2023 that Yerevan recognizes Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh. Pashinian’s political opponents believe that this paved the way for Azerbaijan’s September 2023 military offensive that restored Azerbaijani control of the territory and forced its ethnic Armenian population to flee to Armenia.
Pashinian declared in January that Armenia needs a new constitution reflecting the “new geopolitical environment” in the region. Analysts believe that he wants to remove from the current constitution a reference to a 1990 declaration of independence which in turn cites a 1989 unification act adopted by the legislative bodies of Soviet Armenia and the then Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. Baku maintains that such a change is a necessary condition for the signing of a peace treaty discussed by the two sides.
Also, Aliyev said in July that Yerevan must ensure the safe return of ethnic Azerbaijanis who had fled Armenia in the late 1980s. The Azerbaijani president’s website claims that one-quarter of Armenia’s internationally recognized territory is “historical Azerbaijani lands.”