Unlike Armenia, Azerbaijani Constitution indeed contains territorial claims – PM

YEREVAN, AUGUST 31, ARMENPRESS. The Azerbaijani Constitution contains territorial claims against Armenia; however, Armenia doesn’t demand its change at this phase because the agreed upon articles of the draft peace treaty resolve this issue, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has said.

Pashinyan, speaking at a press conference, touched upon Azerbaijan’s accusations against the Armenian Constitution: Baku claims that the Armenian Constitution contains territorial demands against Azerbaijan because the document’s preamble cites the Declaration of Independence, which mentions the 1988 decision regarding the unification of NK and Armenia. 

“To what extent is the Azerbaijani argument substantiated? According to article five of the Declaration of Independence, the armed forces, security bodies and so on are created under the subordination of the then-Supreme Council. Meaning, the Declaration of Independence says that the armed forces and special services in Armenia are subordinate to the Supreme Council, that is, the legislature of the country. But in 1995, when the Constitution was adopted, from the very first moment the army, the National Security Service and the police were subordinate to the President of the Republic. This means that the content of the Declaration of Independence is not automatically expressed in the constitution,” Pashinyan said.

Pashinyan stressed that what’s written verbatim and literally is what’s expressed in the Constitution from the Declaration of Independence, and what’s not written verbatim and literally, is not expressed in the Constitution. He further said that all elections that took place in Armenia were held on an area of 29 thousand 743 square kilometers territory of Armenia. There was no referendum or election of Armenia in NK. 

And unlike the Armenian Constitution, the Azerbaijani Constitution does indeed contain territorial claims against Armenia, he added.

“The Azerbaijani Constitution cites the 1991 state independence act. This act cites the 1918, May 28 Azerbaijani Declaration of Independence. Furthermore, the act says that the present-day Azerbaijan is the successor of the 1918-1920 Azerbaijan. While the 1918-1920 Azerbaijan declaration says that the Southern and Eastern Transcaucasia are Azerbaijani territories. Under the 1919 Entente map Azerbaijan presented claims for the entirety of the present-day provinces of Syunik and Vayots Dzor, and partially for the provinces of Tavush, Gegharkunik, Ararat, Lori and Shirak. Unlike the Constitution of Armenia, the Azerbaijani constitution does contain territorial claims against Armenia,” Pashinyan said.

He said Armenia doesn’t raise the issue of Azerbaijan changing its constitution because the draft peace treaty contains an agreed upon article saying that the sides cannot cite their domestic legislation for not fulfilling the provisions of the treaty.

“Now we see that the Azerbaijani Constitution contains territorial demands against Armenia. Furthermore, the Azerbaijani papers I mentioned contain a wording that the territory of Azerbaijan is 108 thousand square kilometers and after solving the border issues with Armenia and Georgia it will become 141 thousand square kilometers. This means that under this logic the present-day Constitution of Azerbaijan stipulates territorial ambitions for another 45-46 thousand square kilometers. Are we concerned over this? Of course we are concerned, of course this is a problem. How are we responding to this problem? Are we saying let Azerbaijan change its Constitution? No, we are saying, that there is a an agreed upon article of the peace treaty, which would resolve this issue in case of signing, stipulating that none of the parties can cite its domestic legislation to not fulfill obligations stemming from the treaty. This is stipulated, and the rest is history, you can’t erase history, and there’s no need for it,” Pashinyan said.

If Armenia were to demand Azerbaijan to change its constitution it would amount to deliberately bringing the issue to a deadlock, he said.