Aliyev Again Insists of Changes to Armenia’s Constitution as Precondition for Peace

After demanding — and getting — four villages in the Tavush Province, Azerbaijan, led by its president, Ilham Aliyev, is exerting pressure on Yerevan to amend Armenia’s Constitution as a precondition for peace between the two countries.

“Without amendments to the Armenian constitution, signing a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan will simply be impossible,” Aliyev said on Thursday, reiterating the threats he made in April when he said such changes were a “precondition” for a peace agreement with Armenia.

The Azerbaijani Trend news agency reported that during the same remarks, Aliyev suggested that Baku and Yerevan, together, petition the OSCE for the dissolution of the Minsk Group, which for decades mediated the Karabakh conflict resolution process.

Similar demands were made on Wednesday by Azerbaijan’s foreign minister Jeyhun Bayramov, who said that Armenia’s Constitution contains territorial claims from Azerbaijan. He also scoffed at Armenia’s Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan’s assertion a day before that both Yerevan and Baku see “obstacles to the establishment of a lasting peace in each other’s constitutions.”

Aliyev and his government say that Armenia must remove a reference in the Constitution to Armenia’s Declaration of Independence, which calls for the reunification of Armenia and Artsakh.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in the past has said the language in the Declaration of Independence threatens stability in the region, advocating for changes to Armenia’s Constitution that reflect the current geopolitical realities.