Azerbaijan, in the context of signing the peace agreement, puts forward the claim that the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia (RA) stipulates territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan noted this in his remarks Tuesday in the National Assembly during the debates on the Armenian government’s performance report for 2024.

“I believe that in order to take the right position on this issue, we must first try to proceed from the assumption that Azerbaijan is putting forward this issue as a sincere concern and not as an excuse not to sign the peace agreement, as a number of experts think.

We ourselves must honestly understand the essence of the issue, the political and legal content. And therefore, we must record that only the RA Constitutional Court can give an official interpretation of the text of the RA Constitution. That is, the Constitutional Court is the body that can officially say what the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia contains and what it does not contain. (…) the body authorized to interpret the Constitution of Armenia has established by an irrevocable decision that there are no territorial claims to Azerbaijan or any other country in the constitution of Armenia,” Pashinyan said.

He noted that, on the other hand, it is Armenia that sees territorial claims to the Republic of Armenia in the constitution of Azerbaijan.

“But we do not raise this issue because the draft of the agreement on the establishment of peace and interstate relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan contains the necessary wording that resolve the issue by recording that the parties have no territorial claims to each other and undertake not to put forward such claims in the future, with the understanding that the two countries recognize each other’s territorial integrity through the territories of the Soviet republics, as stated in the Almaty Declaration.

So, if we accept that Azerbaijan's position regarding our constitution is not an excuse but a sincere concern, the most effective way to dispel that concern is not to not sign the agreement, but to sign it. (…) with its current position on the matter of the peace agreement, Azerbaijan is hindering the resolution of the issues it has raised itself, and this is what gives many experts reason to say that Azerbaijan is simply delaying under fabricated pretexts the signing of the peace agreement.

In order not to be misunderstood, let me emphasize again: in the case of any interpretation, the way to address the issues raised by Azerbaijan is not to not sign the peace agreement, but to sign [it]," Pashinyan stated.