Shafiyev: Armenia’s unwillingness to change Constitution may indicate reluctance to make peace with Baku

Armenia’s unwillingness to change its Constitution may indicate an unwillingness to establish peace with Baku, Chairman of the Board of the Center for Analysis of International Relations Farid Shafiyev told Report.

In his opinion, changing the Constitution of Armenia at the moment concerns international law and is not entirely an internal matter, since Baku and Yerevan are working on a peace treaty.

“A whole group of legislative acts in Armenia, based on the Constitution, do not recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and sovereignty over Karabakh. At one time, Kocharyan was elected president, despite the fact that he did not have five years of residency in Armenia, and the Constitutional Court considered his residence in Karabakh as for living on the territory of Armenia. Therefore, naturally, this issue must be resolved,” Shafiyev noted.

He emphasized that the Belfast Agreement can serve as a precedent in this matter: “This is the best and relatively recent precedent from 1998. Under this agreement, Ireland pledged to make changes to the Constitution and recognize the full sovereignty of Great Britain over Northern Ireland.”

Shafiyev suggested that perhaps the peace treaty would contain some kind of reference to Armenia’s commitments to change the Constitution.

“However, it is advisable to complete the process of amending the fundamental law of Armenia before the signing of the peace treaty. If it does not work out by then, some specific deadlines should be indicated that the Constitution of Armenia should be amended within a year from signing,” he added.