Azerbaijan Says No Need for Mediator in Peace Talks with Armenia

Azerbaijan and Armenia do not need the participation of a mediator in the peace talks, in order to prevent external interference, Hikmet Hajiyev, Assistant to the President and Head of the Foreign Policy Affairs Department of the Presidential Administration, said on Thursday.

"Baku and Yerevan are conducting peace negotiations, and there is no need for a third party's involvement. On the contrary, the interference of third parties in the region's affairs hinders the normalization of relations," Hajiyev said.

Simultaneously, Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov reaffirmed that Azerbaijan and Armenia have not yet reached a final agreement on the draft peace treaty, and negotiations are underway.

The minister said that the draft peace treaty comprises a preamble and 17 articles.

"The texts for the preamble and 15 articles have been fully agreed upon, leaving two articles with unresolved issues. Work is ongoing to address these matters. Several rounds of negotiations and text exchanges have taken place, but a fully agreed version has not yet been finalized," he said.

Bayramov elaborated that Armenia's constitution still contains territorial claims against Azerbaijan, and Baku is waiting for decisive steps from Yerevan to constructively address this issue.

"However, the recent arguments presented by Armenia are unsatisfactory. Furthermore, the Armenian Constitutional Court recently ruled that the preamble of the Armenian Constitution is immutable and cannot be altered. This decision further complicates the situation, as the preamble references Armenia’s Declaration of Independence, which includes claims against Azerbaijan's territorial integrity," Bayramov stated.

The preamble in the Constitution of Armenia mentions a 1990 declaration of the country’s independence from the Soviet Union. The declaration cites an Act from 1989 for the unification between Armenia and the internationally recognized Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.

For Baku, it constitutes a territorial claim against Azerbaijan and sets ground for a possible conflict in the future should a new government in Yerevan interpret it as a legal claim.

Authorities in Azerbaijan, including President Ilham Aliyev, have regularly stated that Baku would refuse to sign a peace treaty with Yerevan unless legal hindrances are repealed.

Former President Charles Michel of the European Council hosted six meetings as part of Azerbaijan-Armenia peace negotiations in various European locations, including Brussels and Moldova’s capital Chișinău. Sovereignty and territorial integrity, border delimitation, connectivity, and other issues comprised the agenda of the negotiations.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also facilitated several meetings between the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia, with the most recent taking place on September 24. However, Azerbaijan has reportedly declined Blinken's proposal for the next trilateral meeting to be held in Malta, citing the Biden administration's "unjust and biased" stance toward Azerbaijan.

Negotiations have also been held in Russia and Kazakhstan, while Georgia has offered to host talks as well. Despite these efforts, Baku and Yerevan appear to be moving toward a bilateral format to expedite a peace agreement.

Armenia and Azerbaijan had long been at odds over the latter’s Karabakh (Garabagh) region. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Armenia launched a full-scale war against Azerbaijan, which ended with a ceasefire in 1994. The war led to Armenia occupying 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territories, resulting in over 30,000 Azerbaijanis killed and one million others expelled from those lands in a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign conducted by Armenia.

On September 27, 2020, the decades-old conflict reignited after Armenia’s forces illegally deployed in occupied Azerbaijani lands shelled military positions and civilian settlements of Azerbaijan. During the ensuing counter-attack operations that lasted 44 days, Azerbaijani forces liberated over 300 settlements, including the cities of Jabrayil, Fuzuli, Zangilan, Gubadli, and Shusha, from Armenian occupation. The war ended on November 10, 2020, with a tripartite statement signed by Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia, under which Armenia returned the occupied Aghdam, Kalbajar, and Lachin districts to Azerbaijan.

Shortly after the 2020 war, Azerbaijani authorities expressed their readiness and determination to negotiate with Armenia to bring long-awaited peace to the region. In March 2022, Baku proposed five basic principles to Yerevan, including mutual recognition of territorial integrity and border delimitation.

Bigger chances have surfaced to finally normalize the mutual ties in a durable peace after Azerbaijan’s one-day anti-terror operation in September 2023 that restored the country's sovereignty in the entire territory of the Karabakh region.