Azerbaijan continued to demand a change of the constitution even after the two sides finalized last week an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said this remains “the main condition for signing the negotiated text.”
Baku points to the constitution’s preamble that mentions a 1990 declaration of Armenia’s independence. The declaration in turn cites a 1989 unification act adopted by the legislative bodies of Soviet Armenia and the then Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has repeatedly downplayed the legal significance of the preamble, pointing to the Armenian Constitutional Court’s September 2024 ruling that articles of the constitution take precedence over it. He has also argued that the draft peace treaty stipulates that the parties cannot refer to their domestic legislation to justify their failure to implement it.
At the same time, Pashinian has pledged to try to enact a new constitution through a referendum. But this is unlikely to happen before Armenia’s next general elections due in June 2026.
Simonian, who is a key member of Pashinian’s political team, indicated Yerevan’s readiness to address the Azerbaijani demands in another way.
“We are ready to discuss, to understand whether or not there are, as they allege, territorial claims in Armenia’s constitution,” he told journalists. “Is there such a thing in their constitution?”
“In the end, we can send the constitutions of the two countries for examination to find out whether these claims are true or not,” said. “For example, we can send the constitutions of our two countries to the Venice Commission [of the Council of Europe] and ask. Let the Venice Commission say whether or not that is true.”
Baku has also set other conditions for ending the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, notably the opening of a land corridor to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave that would pass through, Syunik a key Armenian region. Earlier this year, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev renewed his implicit threats to order military action against Armenia for that purpose.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry on Sunday repeatedly accused Armenian troops of violating the ceasefire at a Syunik section of the border between the two states. The Armenian military swiftly denied those accusations.
“Yesterday’s spare of false reports are not just a one-step operation,” said Tigran Abrahamian, an Armenian opposition parliamentarian. “A broader campaign against Armenia is being waged by Azerbaijan.”
Abrahamian noted that earlier this month Azerbaijani state-run media outlets claimed that Armenia is gearing up for another war with Azerbaijan. Armenian analysts have said that such claims may be a prelude to an Azerbaijani attack on Syunik. Pashinian has similarly suggested that Azerbaijan may be preparing the ground for such an attack.
Simonian expressed confidence, however, Baku will not resort to it in the coming weeks.
“I don’t think that they will take such a step at this stage,” he said. “We have just announced that the peace treaty has been finalized.”
Simonian speculated that the “false” reports about Armenian truce violations are simply designed to substantiate Aliyev’s statement that Baku has “zero trust” in Yerevan.