Yerevan already made a number of concessions earlier this month to remove the remaining disagreements on the text of a draft Armenian-Azerbaijani treaty. It has since repeatedly appealed to Baku to sign the treaty. The Azerbaijani leadership makes that conditional on a change of Armenia’s constitution and the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh.
“At this stage, Azerbaijan will continue to drag out the negotiation process -- and the signing of that document in particular -- and try to get new concessions from Armenia,” said Tigran Abrahamian, a lawmaker representing the opposition Pativ Unem bloc.
“Why should [Baku] sign it if the current Armenian authorities are making all imaginable and unimaginable concessions even without that piece of paper?” agreed Artur Khachatrian of the Hayastan alliance.
“Azerbaijan is setting numerous preconditions: the change of the constitution, the ‘corridor’ issue, the extradition of ‘war criminals,’ and the withdrawal of [Armenian] lawsuits from international courts,” Khachatrian told reporters. “I think that unless there is strong [international] pressure on Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan will not sign any document.”
The Armenian opposition has for years said that Pashinian’s appeasement policy only encourages Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to make more demands on Armenia and will not bring real peace. Even before the latest progress in Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks, opposition leaders claimed that Pashinian is desperate to secure an incomplete peace deal in hopes of misleading Armenians and increasing his chances of holding on to power.
Arman Yeghoyan, a senior member of Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, described Baku’s stance as “not constructive.” Still, Yeghoyan said the fact that the two sides managed to bridge their differences on the draft peace treaty was a major diplomatic achievement for Armenia.
Not only is Baku in no hurry to sign the treaty but it has also raised more fears of a military attack on Armenia. Throughout last week the Azerbaijani military accused Armenian forces of violating the ceasefire at various sections of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Armenian opposition figures and commentators suggested that the accusations denied by Yerevan are aimed at preparing the ground for military action or forcing Pashinian to make more concessions.