Pashinyan presents final two agreed-upon provisions of peace treaty

The negotiations on the text of the peace agreement and the establishment of interstate relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan have been completed with an agreement on the text, which I believe is an important event, Prime Minister Pashinyan said at a briefing with journalists while addressing the two unresolved provisions of the draft peace treaty, to which Armenia has already given its consent.

The Prime Minister assured that there are no secrets from the public regarding the text. “We have been negotiating over the text for four years; essentially, it is known.” He reaffirmed that the text is ready for signing and that the Armenian side is prepared to discuss the timing and location of the signing.

Referring to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry’s statement that they are ready to start negotiations in a bilateral format, Pashinyan said: “They have their ideas, and we have ours. It is expected that during these discussions, we will try to bring our positions closer together.”

He emphasized that the agreed provisions pertain to the period after the peace agreement enters into force. “One of the two articles concerns the issue of not deploying forces from third countries along the border. The other concerns the mutual withdrawal of claims from international instances and the commitment not to take actions against each other,” Pashinyan said.

He noted that both parties had been making proposals on these two provisions for quite some time. "In fact, these provisions have undergone a small but significant evolution. Since it became clear that we are unable—and likely will not be able—to achieve ideal formulations in this regard, we also discussed them in the Security Council format and concluded that the current content can be considered a compromise option acceptable to Armenia," Pashinyan stated.

He added that if an agreement has been reached, it means both parties find it beneficial. “These are the compromises we have spoken about publicly. We have addressed every clause in detail. We made a decision because we believe this is a compromise text, which is what a peace agreement should be. A peace agreement does not follow a different genre or formula,” the Prime Minister emphasized.