Armenia offers Azerbaijan to sign peace agreement, OSCE MG dissolution request simultaneously

Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan on Tuesday offered Azerbaijan to simultaneously sign the peace agreement and a joint application to the OSCE requesting the dissolution of the Minsk Group bodies.

Speaking in parliament, Pashinyan emphasized that the draft Agreement on Peace and Establishment of Interstate Relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan has been agreed upon and the talks on the draft document have been concluded. “This means that we have entered the phase of discussions around the signing of the agreement. I have said that on behalf of the Armenian people I am ready to place my signature under that agreement,” Pashinyan said.

He said that Azerbaijan, meanwhile, has been officially linking the signing of the agreement with two issues, one of them being the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group bodies.

“I have numerously said that this is an understandable agenda for Armenia. If we are closing the chapter of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and we are doing so, then what is the meaning of the existence of the body dealing with the conflict. But the OSCE Minsk Group, at least de facto, has a broader context. And we want to make sure that Azerbaijan is not perceiving the dissolution of the Minsk Gorup as a step to close the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in the territory of Azerbaijan and moving it to the sovereign territory of Armenia. In order to dispel this concern, we are proposing to Azerbaijan to simultaneously sign the peace agreement and a joint application addressed to the OSCE about the dissolution of the Minsk Group structures. Meaning, to put the peace agreement and the joint application on dissolving the OSCE Minsk Group bodies on the table and sign both the former and the latter in the same place and time. This is an official offer,” Pashinyan said.

Azerbaijan’s next precondition for signing the peace agreement is the false claim that Armenia’s constitution contains territorial demands against Azerbaijan. Baku has been demanding constitutional amendments with this argument. Armenia has numerously denied having territorial demands against any country.