Finalized terms of peace treaty dispel Azerbaijan’s concerns, says Speaker

The draft peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan includes solutions to all issues that Azerbaijan has been presenting as its concerns, Speaker of Parliament Alen Simonyan has said.

“If that would be insufficient, we would be ready to continue discussions to understand whether or not the Armenian constitution contains any territorial demand, as well as whether or not such a provision exists in the Azerbaijani constitution. We, for example, say that we have already resolved that issue in the peace treaty. We are saying that after the peace treaty would pass our internal institutions, no such question would arise. After all, this question can be subjected to an expert assessment. For example, we could send the constitutions of our two countries to the Venice Commission and request them, for instance, to say whether such an issue exists,” Simonyan told reporters when asked on the matter.

The Speaker said that throughout the negotiations Armenia tried to substantiate its stance and be guided by logical discussions.

The governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan announced on March 13 that the negotiations around the peace treaty terms have been successfully concluded. The Armenian government has expressed readiness to start discussions with Azerbaijan around the date and location of signing the agreement. However, shortly afterwards a top Azeri official claimed that “as a next step Armenia must change its constitution.” The Azeri narrative claiming that the Armenian constitution contains so-called territorial demands against Azerbaijan has been numerously denied by Armenian officials.