Azerbaijan's president has reiterated Baku’s demand from Armenia to remove a territorial provision in the country’s constitution as one of the conditions for signing a peace deal.
Speaking during a joint press conference with his visiting German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier in the capital Baku on Wednesday, Ilham Aliyev recalled that the text of the peace agreement with Armenia has been fully agreed upon and that Azerbaijan does not put forward any additional conditions, according to the state news agency Azertac.
“Our conditions are known to Armenia, they are not new. We have been putting forward these conditions for a long time. However, we have not received any serious response from Armenia to date. What does this consist of? First, the OSCE Minsk Group must be dissolved,” Aliyev was quoted as saying.
The international group is meant to be neutral, but it has been co-chaired by the US, Russia and France — the countries with large Armenian diasporas.
The president said the second condition is related to Armenia’s constitution, which he said has a provision, referencing the country’s Act of Independence, about unifying Azerbaijan’s legal and historical territory with Armenia.
“This is considered an open territorial claim against us. Therefore, the removal of this clause from the Armenian constitution is our legitimate demand,” Aliyev further said, noting that there will be no obstacles to the deal’s signing once these two conditions are met.
As the historic peace deal nears, Yerevan still has unmet obligations to prove it respects Baku’s security over its territorial integrity.
Aliyev also said he informed Steinmeier of the Azerbaijan-Armenia peace process during their talks earlier Wednesday.
“I stated that after the end of the Second Karabakh War, it was Azerbaijan and I personally who initiated the start of peace negotiations.
At that time, neither Armenia nor the then-functioning OSCE Minsk Group had put forward such a proposal. … This in itself shows how interested we are in concluding a peace treaty,” Aliyev stressed.
Commenting on his counterpart's visit to Baku, Aliyev said he is certain that his visit will give a new positive impetus to bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Germany.
For his part, Steinmeier conveyed his congratulations on the steps taken and progress made in this regard over the past year.
"An important moment has arrived in reaching an agreement.
I hope that this moment will be used to sign a peace treaty and create a truly lasting peace in your region. I have great hopes for this," Steinmeier said, adding that Berlin is ready to provide the necessary support in this process.
The German president arrived in Baku late Tuesday following a visit to neighbouring Armenia, where he held talks with the country’s leadership in Yerevan. Both respective visits mark the first time that a German president has visited either country.
Relations between the two former Soviet republics have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Karabakh – a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan – and seven adjacent regions.
Most of the territory was liberated by Azerbaijan during a 44-day war in the fall of 2020, which ended after a Russian-brokered peace agreement that opened the door to normalization and demarcation talks.
In September 2023, Azerbaijan established full sovereignty in Karabakh after separatist forces in the region surrendered.
On March 13, Baku and Yerevan declared that they reached a consensus on all 17 articles of the peace agreement.
The deal follows years of conflict over Karabakh, which Azerbaijan regained in 2020 and fully secured in 2023.
