Senior Armenian officials have acknowledged that Azerbaijan has objected to Armenia’s 1990 declaration of independence which Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian seems intent on removing from the national constitution. Pashinian declared late last week that Armenia must adopt a constitution reflecting the “new geopolitical environment” in the region. He emphasized that in that context the country’s “external security” and “internationally recognized sovereign territory”. The preamble to the current Armenian constitution makes reference to the declaration adopted by the republic’s first post-Communist parliament. The declaration in turn cites a 1989 unification act adopted by the legislative bodies of Soviet Armenia and the then Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. It also calls for international recognition of the 1915 genocide of Armenians “in Ottoman Turkey and Western Armenia.” Analysts and opposition figures believe that eliminating these references is the main reason for the change of the constitution sought by Pashinian. The latter also said last week that Armenia is ready to formally pledge that it will not have any territorial claims to Azerbaijan in the future.
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said late on Wednesday that during peace talks and exchanges of written proposals with Yerevan Baku described the declaration of independence a “problem” and “presented legal questions” to the Armenian side. “For our part, we considered their legal provisions contentious,” Mirzoyan told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “As part of the peace process, each side has noted problems in the other’s legal framework and informed it about that, and both sides have provided relevant clarifications,” he said. “There will definitely be such discussions.” Mirzoyan insisted at the same time that none of the written proposals on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty exchanged by the two sides calls for any constitutional changes. Opposition leaders and other critics of Pashinian say that he wants to enact a new constitution at the behest of Azerbaijan. Five lawmakers representing the main opposition Hayastan alliance issued on January 19 a joint statement accusing the premier of planning to meet “another of the nonstop Turkish-Azerbaijani demands.” Vahagn Aleksanian, a deputy chairman of Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, denied the opposition claims on Thursday. Still, Aleksanian said that Baku has voiced “discontent” with the 1990 Armenian declaration and that it “could and should be taken into account.” “By the same token, Baku should take into account what is stated by Armenia,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. The Azerbaijani leadership has indicated no plans to address Armenian concerns. Mirzoyan spoke on January 10 of “some regression” in its position on the peace treaty. He said Baku is reluctant to explicitly recognize Armenia’s borders through that accord. In televised remarks aired hours later, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev renewed his demands for Armenia to open an extraterritorial corridor to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave. He also demanded Armenian withdrawal from “eight Azerbaijani villages” and again dismissed Yerevan’s insistence on using the most recent Soviet maps to delimit the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Pashinian countered that Aliyev’s demands amount to territorial claims and seriously complicate the signing of the treaty. He went to make his statements on the new Armenian constitution and additional “guarantees” to Azerbaijan.
