The treaty was initialed during Aliyev’s talks with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian hosted by U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on August 8. Baku has since made clear that its signing remains conditional on a change of the Armenian constitution which it says contains territorial claims to Azerbaijan.
“As far as we understand, they will make the change,” Aliyev told the Saudi state-owned broadcaster Al Arabiya. “And as soon as this constitutional amendment is made, as soon as the territorial claims against Azerbaijan are removed, the peace agreement will officially be signed.”
While rejecting the Azerbaijani precondition in public, Pashinian pledged last year to enact a new constitution. He reaffirmed those plans last week.
Aliyev’s comments were portrayed by Pashinian’s domestic critics as further proof that he wants to do that because of the Azerbaijani pressure. Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan denied that later on Wednesday.
“The issue of the constitution was not discussed in Washington,” Mirzoyan told Armenian Public Television. “We have no obligations to third countries on this issue.”
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 through a referendum.
Observers believe that the referendum could be held simultaneously with Armenia’s next parliamentary elections due in June 2026. Opposition groups have pledged to mobilize Armenians to reject the new constitution.
Aliyev alluded to the vote and the possibility of Pashinian’s defeat and removal from power.
“If any future government of Armenia, regardless of when it comes to power, questions what was signed in Washington, Armenia will face serious consequences because the balance of power in the region is in our favor in all respects,” he warned.
Kristine Vartanian, an opposition parliamentarian, said Aliyev is openly threatening Armenians with military aggression if they reject the new constitution. She said this makes mockery of Pashinian’s statements that the Washington summit put an end to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.
“Aliyev really doesn’t care about his agreements with Pashinian anymore,” Vartanian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “He wants [the same] agreement with the Armenian people, an expression of the will of the Armenian people. We will do everything in our power to prevent that from happening.”