Baku has made clear that it will not sign a peace treaty with Yerevan without a change of Armenia’s constitution which it says contains territorial claims to Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev reaffirmed this precondition hours after the two sides initialed the draft treaty during talks hosted by U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on August 8.
While rejecting it in public, Pashinian pledged to enact a new constitution last year. He reaffirmed those plans on Thursday.
“We are currently working on a new draft constitution and when it is ready, we will most likely hold a referendum,” he told reporters. “But it has nothing to do with this parallel [peace] process, although it may have a strategic impact on that process.”
Pashinian gave no possible dates for the referendum which observers believe could be held simultaneously with Armenia’s next parliamentary elections due in June 2026. He said it will take place only if the Armenian Constitutional Court concludes that the draft Armenian-Azerbaijani treaty does not conform to the current constitution.
Baku specifically wants Yerevan to remove a constitutional preamble that mentions Armenia’s 1990 declaration of independence, which in turn cites a 1989 unification act adopted by the legislative bodies of Soviet Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. The only legal way to do that is to adopt a new constitution.
Despite repeatedly denying that the preamble amounts to territorial claims to Azerbaijan, Pashinian stated in April this year that the new Armenian constitution must carry no reference to the 1990 declaration. Armenian opposition leaders portrayed that as further proof that Pashinian wants to change the constitution at the behest of Baku. They pledged to mobilize Armenians to reject the new constitution in the planned referendum.
“I don't think the people will vote against it if it turns out that it could have any impact on the peace process,” Pashinian said in this regard.