Amirbayov: Armenia's territorial claims in constitution remain main obstacle to peace

Territorial claims against Azerbaijan that are embedded in the current Armenian Constitution continue to remain the only obstacle to further progress in the peace process beyween Baku and Yerevan, the Representative of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan on special assignments, Elchin Amirbayov, told Radio Liberty, according to Report.

"It's not about doing it under pressure from Azerbaijan, but it's about you answering one question: Do you want peace or do you want a possibility for a new confrontation with Azerbaijan?" Elchin Amirbayov said, "If they [the Armenian authorities] put it that way, I think a majority of Armenian people who would participate in that plebiscite or referendum, I'm sure that they would support peace."

"We want to be reassured that the peace agreement is a kind of a solemn treaty that would render impossible any return to revanchism or to any territorial claims to Azerbaijan in the future as it had done in the past," Amirbayov said.

"Territorial claims against Azerbaijan that are embedded in the current Armenian Constitution continue to remain the main, and I would say pretty much the only, obstacle to further progress in the peace process," he added.

According to the representative of the President of Azerbaijan, one factor that is easing the negotiations is that the two sides have agreed to put off the most contentious remaining issue: how to arrange the transportation routes that have become known as the "Zangazur Corridor."

"On mutual agreement, we decided to take this paragraph out of the peace agreement and to refer it to a later stage," he said. "So, we decided to take it out of the text, but we can still reflect in the text [on] the fact that this is one of the other issues on which the countries may come back at some point to discuss and to come to a common agreement."