By Eurasianet – Mar 14, 2025, 4:00 PM CDT
- Armenia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced that the text of the peace agreement with Azerbaijan has been agreed upon, with Yerevan accepting Azerbaijani proposals on key sticking points.
- Azerbaijan has expressed satisfaction with the draft treaty but has stated that certain prerequisites, including amendments to Armenia’s constitution and abolishing the Minsk Group, must be met before signing.
- The peace agreement comes after decades of conflict, including the Second Karabakh War, and follows a period of heightened tensions and hardline rhetoric from Azerbaijan.
Armenia and Azerbaijan appear to have resolved their differences on two negotiating points, clearing the way for the signing of a peace agreement that would end more than 35 years of conflict.
Armenia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced March 13 that “the text of the Peace Agreement has been agreed upon.” The statement added that Yerevan had accepted Azerbaijani proposals on the two sticking points that had delayed finalization of the draft treaty for months. The statement did not provide further details concerning the settlement of the contentious provisions.
“The Peace Agreement is ready for signing,” the Armenian statement announced. “The Republic of Armenia is prepared to initiate consultations with the Republic of Azerbaijan regarding the time and venue for the signing of the Agreement.”
The two sticking points reportedly concerned an Azerbaijani demand that Armenia amend the country’s constitution to clearly recognize Baku’s sovereignty over Nagorno Karabakh, and Baku’s desire for unhindered land access across Armenian territory connecting the Azerbaijani mainland to the Nakhchivan exclave.
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry, in its own statement issued on March 13, expressed “satisfaction” with the draft treaty, but added that several pre-conditions needed to be met before Azerbaijani officials would sign the pact.
The first “prerequisite to allow the signing of the negotiated text” is Yerevan’s adoption of an “amendment to Armenia’s constitution to eliminate the claims against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan,” according to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry statement. The second is Armenia’s consent to “abolish the obsolete and dysfunctional Minsk Group and related structures of the OSCE.”
The Minsk Group, led by the United States, Russia and France, was established in 1992 to oversee the peace process, but the entity’s influence waned in recent years. The draft peace treaty was negotiated largely outside of the Minsk Group framework, amid Azerbaijani claims that it was biased toward Armenia.
“We are ready to continue the bilateral dialogue on these and other issues related to the normalization process between the two countries,” the Azerbaijani statement added.
In the months preceding the sudden announcement that the peace treaty text has been finalized, bilateral relations had taken a nosedive, raising doubts about a settlement over the near term. Azerbaijan’s position on a land connection between the mainland and Nakhchivan significantly hardened, and Baku’s rhetoric became increasingly belligerent. It now seems that the hardline approach may have nudged Armenia – which suffered a disastrous defeat in the Second Karabakh War, resulting in Baku’s reconquest of Karabkah in late 2023 – into making concessions that Azerbaijan sought on the treaty’s sticking points.
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