The Armenian Foreign Ministry announced on March 14 that it had accepted Azerbaijan’s last two outstanding demands and was ready to sign a peace agreement with its neighbor. Secretary of State Marco Rubio lauded the agreement. “Now is the time to commit to peace, sign and ratify the treaty, and usher in a new era of prosperity for the people of the South Caucasus,” he declared. French President Emmanuel Macron also praised the agreement. “I welcome the announcement of the conclusion of negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. There are now no remaining obstacles to the signing of a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which should pave the way for a lasting peace in the South Caucasus,” he tweeted on X.
Such praise is premature, if not naive.
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The text of the agreement remains confidential — never a good sign — but reported final concessions by Armenia included expelling international observers who have successfully monitored the border, much to the consternation of Azerbaijan that continues to occupy Armenian territory near Jermuk. Second, Armenia reported agreed to change its constitution to omit references to its own declaration of independence of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian oblast that Azerbaijan ethnically cleansed in September 2023, putting an end to its 1,700-year Christian community.
Such an Azerbaijani demand, and Armenian acquiescence, is even more bizarre since it does not address the oblique revanchism inherent in Azerbaijan’s embrace of its own 1918 declaration of independence, a document that claimed a huge swath of Armenian land in the South Caucasus.
Here, consider Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s words from late last year: “The Azerbaijani Constitution cites the 1991 State Independence Act. This act cites the 1918, May 28 Azerbaijani Declaration of Independence. Furthermore, the act says that the present-day Azerbaijan is the successor of the 1918-1920 Azerbaijan. The 1918-1920 Azerbaijan declaration says that the Southern and Eastern Transcaucasia are Azerbaijani territories. Under the 1919 Entente map Azerbaijan presented claims for the entirety of the present-day provinces of Syunik and Vayots Dzor, and partially for the provinces of Tavush, Gegharkunik, Ararat, Lori and Shirak. Unlike the Constitution of Armenia, the Azerbaijani constitution does contain territorial claims against Armenia.”
Initially, Armenia argued that both sides could retain the integrities of their constitution with provisions that an article in the peace treaty would state that neither side could cite their domestic legislation for not fulfilling the treaty.
Pashinyan also noted that Azerbaijani papers say that Azerbaijani territory is 108,000 square kilometers [41,700 square miles]. However, the same papers say that resolving their border disputes with Armenia and Georgia will make Azerbaijan 141,000 square kilometers [54,440 miles]. By caving to President Ilham Aliyev’s demands and accepting an inequitable approach, Pashinyan now effectively affirms Aliyev’s territorial ambitions.
The celebrations are premature for another reason. Azerbaijan has never honored a single agreement it has made. It remains not only rhetorically but also militarily on a war footing. Caliber.az, an outlet controlled by Azerbaijan’s defense ministry, not only argued this week that Armenia plans a “blitzkrieg” against Azerbaijan that Azerbaijan should preempt, but that European Union observers are part of the plot. Not only is this nonsense, but the foreign observers have been the most effective check on Azerbaijan’s pattern of breaching, cease-fires and other agreements. Without observers and with Azerbaijan controlling its media and rejecting visas for independent reporters and the travel of foreign diplomats, Armenia will be powerless to expose Azerbaijani violations.
While peace is a noble goal, Armenia should consider the case of Cyprus. In 1974, Turkey invaded Cyprus twice. During its first invasion in July 1974, the Turkish Army seized a beachhead of perhaps three percent of the country. Turkey’s stated goal was to protect Cyprus’ Turkish Muslim minority against the revanchism of the Greek junta. Within days, however, that junta fell; the casus belli dissolved. It was only then — and against the backdrop of Geneva peace talks — that the Turkish Army invaded again, seizing more than one-third of the nation. Last year, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lamented publicly that Turkey ceased its drive and did not conquer the entirety of the country so that Cyprus in its entirety could become a part of Turkey.
The United Nations and international community have tried over subsequent decades to negotiate a peace between Cyprus and the Vichy regime that Turkey set up in the occupied zone. One such effort culminated in the Annan Plan, negotiated by then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The basis of the plan was the formation of a “United Republic of Cyprus” comprised of two federal states, one Turkish and the other Greek. The Swiss federal model influenced many of the proposed government structures and mechanisms for power sharing.
In 2004, the UN put the Annan Plan to a referendum: Two-thirds of Turkish Cypriots voted in favor, but three quarters of Greek Cypriots voted against. Turks have argued ever since that Greek disapproval of the Annan Plan conveys a lack of interest in peace.
Such interpretation is nonsense. The reason for the Annan Plan’s rejection was clear-eyed appraisal of its flaws. In a Mega TV exit poll questioning those who said they voted “No,” 75 percent referred to concerns over “security” as their reason for their vote; only 13 percent said they wanted to live separately from Turkish Cypriots. What killed the deal was not Greek rejectionism, but rather the weakness of international negotiators. Faced with Turkish objections, Annan consistently watered down the agreement’s enforcement provisions. The negotiators omitted any mechanism that would compel a party not living up to its obligations to do so. For example, if Turkey failed to withdraw troops, there was no way to make them, nor did the plan address the Turkish settlers on the island who today vastly outnumber the native Turkish Cypriot population. Quite the contrary, Cypriots saw loopholes through which Turks could pour settlers into Cyprus to change the island’s demography, much as Azerbaijan’s Soviet-era leaders and then Ilham Aliyev have done regarding Nagorno-Karabakh.
Nor was the Annan Plan the only example of diplomatic smoke-and-mirrors obfuscating major flaws that render peace mute. In 2018, the United Nations brought Yemen’s warring sides to Stockholm to negotiate an agreement to prevent a military attack on the Red Sea Port of Hudaydah, the main entry point for humanitarian assistance. While diplomats celebrated the subsequent Stockholm Agreement as an avenue to peace, the episode only accelerated war. Against the backdrop of Houthi negotiators violating their own commitments and desperate to win a deal, the UN proposed an inspection regime to ensure ships docking in Hudaydah did not carry weaponry. Buried in the details? Such inspections were voluntary. A third party would take over port operations from the Houthis with customs revenue from inspected ships paying their salaries. In practice, the Houthis changed uniforms and today control the port on the international community’s dime. Khaled Alyemany, the foreign minister of Yemen’s International Recognized Government temporarily based in Aden resigned in disgust.
Back to Armenia: Seeking peace is honorable, but poorly negotiated peace can be more dangerous than the status quo. True peace requires sincerity, especially as some regimes look at diplomacy as an asymmetric warfare strategy to tie their opponent’s hands while they pursue their own fait accompli. Poorly negotiated peace absent mechanisms to ensure compliance can fuel crises and increase the confidence of those who believe they can act unilaterally. Ideology adds fuel to the fire as ideologues can justify any transgression in a belief system that sees the other side as subhuman or unworthy. This was the case with Rwanda’s anti-Tutsi genocide, for example.
It is always a bad sign when those negotiating peace have so little faith in the deal and the judgment of their own people that they try to keep the peace agreement’s provisions secret. It is also dangerous to accept the plaudits of outside diplomats who want the photo opportunity and the mantle of peacemaker without having to live with the consequences.
If Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan truly believes the deal to which he apparently agreed is worth the paper on which it is written, he should do what the United Nations did in Cyprus and agree to hold a binding referendum. Armenians are intelligent; they want peace but can also assess whether the proposed deal with Azerbaijan can bring it. Pashinyan should not go the route of the United Nations in Yemen, as this will only lead to war, a possibility that a bad agreement could accelerate if not greenlight.
