Azerbaijan urges constitutional change in Armenia

With Azerbaijan ending its 30-year occupation by Armenia, an opportunity has emerged for the normalization of relations between the two countries and the return of peace to the South Caucasus, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov told Anadolu, Report informs.

Bayramov, speaking on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, stated that Armenia must remove territorial claims against Azerbaijan from its Constitution and accept the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group.

He recalled that official Baku proposed to close the page of hostility to Yerevan in 2021, and this call remained unanswered for about a year:

"After presenting the five main points of the peace agreement to Armenia in the first months of 2022, discussions between the two countries began in October of that year. The first draft of the peace agreement was also written by Azerbaijan and presented to Armenia. The negotiations took about two and a half years. About a month ago, the discussions were concluded and an agreement was reached on the text of the agreement."

“There are critical factors that must be resolved. The most important one is Armenia’s constitutional claims against Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. As long as this continues, a peace deal is not possible. Changing the Armenian Constitution is a non-negotiable requirement,” Bayramov said.

He added that the Minsk Group, co-chaired by the US, France and Russia failed to achieve any results for three decades. “The Karabakh issue is resolved. Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan. Armenia acknowledges this. So why insist on keeping the Minsk Group alive? We demand its formal dissolution,” he said.