“Today we also have the opportunity to make our contribution to the peaceful and prosperous future of our region,” he said in a statement on the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. “The draft Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and Interstate Relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan has been agreed upon and is awaiting signing, and we will follow that path.”
“Despite all internal and external provocations, there will be no war between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan, there will be peace,” added Pashinian.
Azerbaijan has set multiple conditions, notably a change of the Armenian constitution, for the signing of the draft treaty. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev warned last month that Armenia will risk a “new military confrontation” with his country unless it meets those conditions.
Just days after the two sides bridged their remaining differences on the text of the treaty in mid-March, Azerbaijan began regularly accusing Armenia of violating the ceasefire regime along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Residents of two Armenian border villages have since reported cross-border fire from nearby Azerbaijani army positions on a virtually daily basis.
Armenian opposition figures maintain that the Azerbaijani accusations denied by Yerevan are aimed at preparing the ground for invading Armenia or forcing Pashinian to make the concessions. They say Aliyev will not sign the peace deal without clinching them.
Visiting Turkey in mid-April, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan suggested that the Azerbaijani authorities “just don't want to finalize this normalization process” and are “not going to build peace.”
Mirzoyan again complained about the Baku’s preconditions on Friday when he spoke to journalists after laying flowers at a Second World War memorial in Yerevan.
“Unfortunately, we are hearing different statements from the Azerbaijani side,” he said. “There is no progress yet but there is a conversation, and as with any negotiation, let's be patient, maybe there will be good news in the near future.”
Earlier this week, Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonian spoke of “very active discussions” taking place between Yerevan and Baku. But he refused to elaborate.
Pashinian’s domestic critics have for years said that his appeasement policy only encourages Aliyev to make more demands on Armenia and will not bring real peace. They claim that Pashinian is desperate to secure a deeply flawed peace deal in hopes of misleading Armenians and increasing his chances of holding on to power.