Armenia and Azerbaijan to sign treaty on state border in the future: Deputy PM presents regulation on delimitation
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YEREVAN, OCTOBER 21, ARMENPRESS. The regulation on joint activity of the commissions on delimitation and border security, signed between Armenia and Azerbaijan, provides for the signing of an international treaty on the state border in the future, Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan told lawmakers on October 21.
Grigoryan presented the regulation to the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs.
The regulation was signed by the deputy prime ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan on August 30.
Grigoryan said the commissions of the two countries have so far held 9 meetings and signed 2 protocols, the 8th meeting of April 19, 2024, and the 9th meeting of May 15, 2024, as well as the abovementioned regulation.
The protocol of the 8th meeting envisages key procedural agreements on the delimitation process, including an agreement that the parties will be guided by the Almaty Declaration in the delimitation process. In the May protocol the parties agreed the description of separate sections of the border line, with the purpose of aligning it with the legally substantiated inter-republican border that existed at the time of the USSR collapse, in accordance with the topographical map of the 1976 USSR General Staff of the Armed Forces which [took effect] in 1979.
Grigoryan stressed that the regulation was factually signed on the basis on the April 19, 2024 protocol because in accordance with the protocol the parties have agreed to be guided by the Almaty Declaration in the delimitation process.
“The parties also agreed to enshrine this fundamental principle in the regulation. In the April 19 protocol the parties also agreed to further agree upon the sequence, after the confirmation of the regulation by the parties, and continue the delimitation process in all remaining parts of the border, including the issues related to enclaves and exclaves. The regulation supplements the legal grounds of the commissions’ activities that are aimed at the normal course of the delimitation work. At the same time, the regulation creates opportunities for implementing additional mechanisms for ensuring security, economic activity and other goals of border residents, namely the regulations regarding optimization of the borderline's passing,” Grigoryan said.
Procedural issues pertaining to the future agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan on the state border are also regulated, in which the stipulation of the international legal grounds of the Armenian state border is an important legal guarantee for strengthening security and ensuring inviolability of borders and territorial integrity.
“Paragraph 4 of article 5 of the regulation provides for the parties in the future to sign an international treaty about the state border, and it will pass the required national procedures, after which the protocol-description of the border line will take effect, as a component of that international treaty,” Grigoryan said.
The regulation creates stable mechanisms, the relevant tools, as well as institutional foundation for regulating border issues between the two states, the Deputy PM said.
After passing the committee hearing the regulation will be presented for parliament’s ratification.