In an apparent change of rhetoric, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan downplayed on Friday a constitutional reference to the 1990 declaration of Armenia’s independence which Azerbaijan calls the main hurdle to peace between the two South Caucasus nations.
The document adopted by Armenia’s first post-Communist parliament declared “the start of a process of establishing independent statehood.” It also made reference to a 1989 unification act adopted by the legislative bodies of Soviet Armenia and the then Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast.
The declaration is in turn cited in a preamble to the Armenian constitution enacted in 1995 and repeatedly amended since then. Azerbaijani leaders have regularly said in the past several months that this reference amounts to territorial claims to Azerbaijan. They have made clear that the signing of an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty is conditional on its scrapping.
Pashinyan criticized the 1990 declaration even before Baku publicly set that precondition. He stated in February that that peace with Azerbaijan will be impossible as long as the document is referenced in the constitution.
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The only legal way to remove that reference is to enact a new constitution through a referendum. Pashinyan announced plans to do that earlier this year, leading his detractors to claim that he is bowing to yet another Azerbaijani demand.
Pashinyan appeared to alter his rhetoric on Friday in a statement congratulating Armenians on the 34th anniversary of the 1990 declaration’s adoption. He said that “contrary to various interpretations” the constitutional reference in question “does not mean that the entire content of the Declaration of Independence is included in the Armenian constitution and that the content of these two documents is identical.”
The constitution reflects “only those provisions of the declaration that are expressed directly and literally, and any other interpretation is simply not appropriate,” added Pashinyan. He did not explicitly point to Baku’s demands.
Pashinyan reaffirmed his plans to change the constitution as recently as on July 5. Earlier, he ordered an ad hoc government body to draft a new basic law by the end of 2026.