“We do not share the perception that there is anything in our Constitution that could be troubling for Azerbaijan,” Mirzoyan said in response to a question from an Azerbaijani journalist attending an international conference in Yerevan focused on peacebuilding and multilateral cooperation.
“Therefore, we do not accept this as part of the negotiation agenda and are not negotiating on this issue,” he continued. “Peace has been established; a number of agreements have been reached, published, and signed. But there are also issues on which the two countries do not agree. This is one of those issues.”
Mirzoyan added that Armenia and Azerbaijan do not even have an understanding that their respective constitutions should be part of the peace talks. He also noted that, from Armenia’s perspective, Azerbaijan’s own constitution contains implications or references that could be seen as threats to Armenia’s territorial integrity.
At the same time, the minister recalled that Armenia had publicly stated as early as 2018 that it planned to amend its Constitution, emphasizing that this was an internal matter. “This relates to the Armenian side of this hall. First and foremost, it is part of the domestic agenda, and perhaps only the domestic agenda,” he said.
Baku has repeatedly demanded that Armenia 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 then Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast within Soviet Azerbaijan.
On several occasions, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and other officials in Baku reiterated this demand after Armenia and Azerbaijan initialed a peace agreement during a meeting hosted by U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington on August 8.
While refusing to discuss Azerbaijan’s demand as a precondition, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has effectively pledged to enact the change as part of his government’s policy aimed at securing lasting peace with neighboring countries. The only legal way to do that is to adopt a new Constitution through a national referendum.