An ad hoc government panel met on Wednesday for the first time after being tasked by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan with drafting a new constitution for Armenia demanded by Azerbaijan.
The Constitutional Reform Council was formed by Pashinyan in 2022 with the aim of proposing amendments to the current Armenian constitution. An executive order signed by Pashinyan two months ago changed the council’s mandate, saying that it must draft a “new constitution” from scratch before January 2027.
The order came as Azerbaijan continued make the signing of a peace treaty with Armenia conditional on such a legislative change. Azerbaijani leaders claim that the Armenian constitution enacted in 1995 contains territorial claims to Azerbaijan.
Baku specifically wants Yerevan to remove a preamble to the constitution that mentions Armenia’s 1990 declaration of independence, which in turn cites a 1989 unification act adopted by the legislative bodies of Soviet Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. The only legal way to do that is to enact an entirely new constitution through a referendum.
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Pashinyan stated earlier this year that peace with Azerbaijan will be impossible as long as the reference to the 1990 declaration remains in place. Nevertheless, his political allies deny opposition claims that he is seeking the constitutional change under Azerbaijani pressure.
The Constitutional Reform Council consists of state officials, pro-government politicians and leaders of two non-governmental organizations. The latter said that it did not discuss the wisdom of removing that reference during Wednesday’s meeting. According to one of them, Daniel Ioannisyan, the council focused on the overall “model” of the new constitution.
“No provision will be written or removed at the behest of a country hostile to Armenia,” insisted Ioannisian.
He said he hopes that the new constitution will also mention the 1990 declaration. But he acknowledged that this will not necessarily be the case.
Artur Sakunts, another civic activist sitting on the council, spoke out against scrapping that constitutional reference. He said Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev is using the issue as an excuse to avoid signing the peace deal with Armenia and recognizing its borders.
“We must not yield to such pressure,” Sakunts told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Aliyev renewed his demands in late April after forcing Pashinyan’s administration to hand over four disputed border areas to Azerbaijan. Armenian opposition leaders have strongly condemned the land transfer, saying that it will only encourage Baku to demand more Armenian concessions.
