Trump won, Aliyev guessed right: the ball is on Armenia's side again

Yerevan has received proposals from Baku regarding the draft peace treaty, the press service of the Armenian Foreign Ministry informed on November 5. This is the 11th edition of the agreement "On the establishment of peace and interstate relations between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan."

Last week, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said that work with the Azerbaijani side continues on "one or two" points of the document, after which, according to him, it will be ready for signing. At the same time, the head of Armenian diplomacy mentioned his "cautious optimism" regarding the conclusion of peace.

"Now we have an understanding that there are one or two formulations left, around which we will continue discussions. This is a normal negotiation process… I would like to express cautious optimism that in the near future we will be able to reach agreement on these one or two formulations, after which the agreement will be ready for signing," the head of the Foreign Ministry said on October 31 during budget discussions in parliament.

Last Tuesday, the Armenian media asked Deputy Foreign Minister Paruyr Oganesyan if it was possible to agree on these formulations and at what stage the peace process is.

"It is at the same stage, and now we are waiting for the reaction of the Azerbaijani side," the deputy head of the Armenian Foreign Ministry said.

Later it became known that the "reaction" of Baku followed and the ball is back on the field of Yerevan.

The previous time, Armenia sent its proposals on the draft agreement at the end of August, proposing to sign a document with already agreed points. Azerbaijan refused.

Earlier this week, Yerevan also reminded Baku of its approach to opening transport links between neighboring countries. We are talking about simplifying the border crossing procedure. Armenia and Azerbaijan may switch to simplified customs and transit procedures if communications are unblocked, Rustam Badasyan, head of the State Revenue Committee (Customs and Tax authority) of the republic, said on November 4.

"This means that it is possible to exchange numerous information with each other in advance. For example, our experience with Georgia has shown that if we send our export data in advance, and they send their own, then the import procedure is actually simplified, because certain information is already available," he explained at the discussions of the draft 2025 state budget in parliamentary commissions.

Badasyan added that negotiations are underway on simplified border crossing regimes and with Iran. This, in turn, can be considered as a reminder by the Armenian side of Baku of its position that Yerevan is ready to provide Azerbaijan with a "through" transport link with Nakhichevan through the territory of Armenia "on the same terms" that Iran currently provides it.

At the end of last month, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan confirmed the proposal to provide Baku with simplified border and customs control procedures for communication with the Azerbaijani exclave.

In August, it became known that by mutual agreement the parties excluded the issue of unblocking transport links from the draft peace agreement, but discussions on it in public and closed modes did not stop. At the same time, the Armenian side, through the mouth of Economy Minister Gevorg Papoyan, made it clear that it prefers a bilateral format of negotiations with Azerbaijan around the blocking of communications.

"When someone comes with a different format, they participate, sometimes they come with their own interests and participate in this process ... The bilateral format, in my opinion, turned out to be effective, and we should continue to try to work with this format," he said.

It turns out that Yerevan calls into question the mechanism of the trilateral working group created after the 44-day war in Karabakh, chaired by the Deputy prime ministers of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, which was designed to implement the agreements reached "on the ground" on the opening of transport links between the two Transcaucasian republics.

Moscow clearly does not like such "liberties". She is determined to continue the work of the already established mechanisms and regularly urges Yerevan not to deviate from the implementation of the agreements reached in the trilateral format.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, at the ceremony of presenting credentials to him by foreign ambassadors, which was also attended by diplomatic representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan, on November 5, assured that Moscow was ready to support the parties both in opening communications and in other issues of the Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement.

"We have done and are doing everything to normalize Azerbaijani-Armenian relations, to ensure lasting peace in Transcaucasia. We will continue to assist in the work on the peace treaty, on the delimitation of the state border and the unblocking of economic and transport links in line with the well—known trilateral agreements at the highest level of 2020-2022," the head of the Russian state emphasized.

As for the peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the prospect of signing it in the near future is becoming more and more uncertain. Yerevan and Baku continues to express diametrically different views on the possibility of a forced conclusion of peace. Azerbaijan considers unacceptable and sharply rejects Armenia's proposal to sign a document with thirteen already agreed articles, leaving three articles that cannot yet be agreed upon for subsequent stages of negotiations.

Officials do not disclose the content of "one or two" clauses of the draft agreement (see the above-mentioned statement by Minister Mirzoyan) on which the parties cannot reach mutual understanding.

In September, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizade imputed "contradictory statements" regarding the peace treaty to the Armenian counter-partners and pointed out the immutability of Baku's position.

"There is a rule that the document is not considered agreed until all its points are agreed," the diplomat stressed.

Pashinyan previously drew attention to the fact that even if all the points of the agreement are agreed, "there is no guarantee that one of the parties will not propose to include another article in the draft the next day." In his opinion, signing a document with already agreed articles will facilitate the possibility of success in resolving disagreements.

"It is not written anywhere that a peace treaty should have 25 articles and cannot have 17, 15, 14 or 13. The problem here is political will… After its signing, the atmosphere, the atmosphere, everything will change for the discussion of these articles. If it is difficult to agree on these articles without a peace treaty, then it will definitely be easier to agree after the principles of peace are defined," he said on September 18.

And as long as disagreements remain regarding the signing of the document in its full form, Baku continues to remind of its demand to amend the The Constitution of Armenia, which, according to the Azerbaijani side, contains territorial claims to the neighboring republic.

"The Armenian people should put an end to their utopian ambitions of uniting Karabakh and Armenia and constitutionally consolidate their desire to live in peace with Azerbaijan," Hikmet Hajiyev, Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan, head of the Foreign Policy Department of the Presidential administration, said in September.

In response, Nikol Pashinyan objects that although the preamble of the Basic Law of Armenia mentions the Declaration of Independence of 1990, which refers to the unification of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, this does not mean that such a provision is expressed in the Armenian Constitution as a legally binding norm. The Prime Minister believes that this is not a problem, since the interstate agreement signed by governments and ratified by parliaments will take precedence over domestic legislation. Moreover, Armenia and Azerbaijan have already agreed on a clause in the draft peace treaty establishing that neither side can invoke its domestic legislation to violate its obligations under the peace agreement.

In addition, the Constitutional Court of Armenia, by its decision of September 26 of this year, decided that the provisions contained in the The Declaration of Independence of the Republic of 1990, but not directly spelled out in its constitution, has no legal force.

In Yerevan, Baku's argument about the need to make appropriate changes to The Constitution of Armenia before the signing of the peace treaty is considered as a diplomatic ploy, delaying the process until the onset of more favorable external conditions for Azerbaijan. These are understood primarily as reducing US pressure and Of the European Union on Baku in order to formalize peace as soon as possible. And we must admit that President Ilham Aliyev's plan is working. The victory of Donald Trump in the US elections meets the interests of Baku, removes the South Caucasus from the zone of priority attention of the "pro-Armenian" administration of Joe Biden and the failed Vice President Kamala Harris. As a result, there is a high probability of even greater intractability of Azerbaijan in the peace process with Armenia, attempts to "put the squeeze on it at the negotiating table.