As this year's United Nations Climate Change Conference in Baku draws closer, negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan appear to be drifting further apart. Despite hopes that the opposite would be true, a lack of clarity and confusion instead continues to reign. Does the draft Agreement on Peace and Establishment of Interstate Relations contain 17 points or 16? Initially, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had announced that consensus had been reached on 13 points while 3 were partially agreed and there was no agreement at all on a fourth. Since then, official statements and media in Armenia instead refers to 16 points though Yerevan has reportedly ditched the three incomplete articles to make only 13.
Last week, like Pashinyan at the end of August, Elchin Amirbayov, Azerbaijani Presidential Representative on Special Assignments, also used 17 for the number of points in the draft treaty. Thus, confusion stemming from a lack of coherent statements, many of which have been contradicted as soon as the following day, continues. But true, maybe this doesn't even matter.
Azerbaijan has anyway made it clear that no agreement can be signed until Armenia amends its constitution, a change that seems unlikely before 2027, though some reports suggest 2026. Last year, Armenian Prime Minister stated that the Declaration of Independence underpinning the constitution would keep Yerevan in a perpetual conflict with its neighbours, specifically Ankara and Baku. Now that narrative has also shifted again. It is Azerbaijan’s constitution that makes territorial claims on Armenia and not vice-versa, Pashinyan recently charged.
The welcome decision to sign a landmark agreement on regulating the Armenian and Azerbaijani border commissions has at least been approved by the Constitutional Court in Yerevan, thus apparently nullifying the problematic constitutional preamble, but Baku doesn’t consider that to have resolved the issue. Meanwhile, hopes that some kind of document could be initialled or signed by COP29 are disappearing fast with less than a month until the event. Even then, will Armenia send a delegation to Baku?
The official position is that no decision has been taken yet and will depend on circumstances closer to the date. This likely includes the outcome of the U.S. Presidential Elections on 5 November. Both Armenian and American officials appear eager to finalise an agreement by that time, potentially to cement current U.S. policy in the region. This is not a surprise. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O’Brien has been clear. Any efforts to unblock regional communications should not benefit Russia or China. Prior to his current position, O’Brien was the Sanctions Coordinator for the U.S. Department of State following the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
On 30 August, O’Brien also revealed at a U.S. Senate hearing that Pashinyan had committed to removing “several thousand” Russian FSB border guards from the country — significantly more than those that did leave from Yerevan's airport the following day. Pashinyan and Russian President Vladimir Putin have also reached an agreement to withdraw FSB guards from the Armenia-Iran border checkpoint. Though some foreign analysts and media interpreted this as a complete withdrawal, the Russian force will actually remain albeit now with Armenian NSS guards working alongside the Russian contingent deployed in a 1992 agreement.
But nobody knows how many NSS border guards that might be. However, that does appear to be the direction Armenia is heading in despite demographic problems.
What is known, however, is that pressure for some kind of agreement to be reached by COP29 in Baku continues. This could even be a joint statement acknowledging the progress and agreements made to date even if the Armenian opposition continues to claim that Pashinyan is ready to concede to anything to remain in power. Even so, they also claim that Aliyev is not interested in peace and that a new war will break out after the climate change conference next month. At least one pro-opposition analyst warns that Pashinyan may be testing Aliyev’s patience too far though others argue Azerbaijan has no interest in signing one anyway.
Whether an agreement is initialled or signed by or during COP29 matters little if the alternative is war or a new and untenable status quo. Until the 44-day war in 2020, Armenia imported some of its wheat from Karabakh harvested in the seven formerly occupied regions of Azerbaijan. Now, the country is almost entirely dependent on Russian imports, as Russian MFA spokesperson Zakharova recently cautioned, raising many questions as to the haste in which Pashinyan seeks to diversify away from Moscow. The same is especially true for Russian gas. Only last month, former U.S. Ambassador to the OSCE Dan Baer caused quite a stir when he warned Armenian citizens that they should brace for cold winters ahead.
As for COP29, there is at least speculation that Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan could attend. The largely symbolic head of state has participated in every COP since taking office in March 2022. But truth be told, having Pashinyan cycling around Baku – as he has on other foreign trips to share on Instagram in recent months – would at least be an intriguing sight.
But regardless of who attends or not, and what unfolds, it is now crucial that both sides reveal the points agreed to date. Both societies remain in the dark, allowing confusion, misinformation, and disinformation to circulate instead. Even the media is unable to adequately report on the normalisation process because of the lack of consistent information. Failure to do so could prolong a tenuous cold peace for years, something that both societies should not have to endure for much longer.
source: Onnik James Krikorian is a journalist, photojournalist, and consultant from the U.K. who has covered the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict since 1994.
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