If President Aliyev, the dictator of Azerbaijan, moved any slower in concluding a peace treaty with Armenia, he would be in reverse. It seems reasonable to assume that he has commitment issues when it comes to formalizing real peace with Armenia. Behind the obligatory rhetoric, particularly on a global stage with third parties such as the United States, the Azerbaijani-Turkish strategy on peace and normalization has been to demand continuous preconditions to extract maximum concessions.
There is substantial evidence to doubt Azerbaijan’s good-faith commitment despite obligatory gestures, such as cross-border trading and civil society visits. The victims of Azerbaijani atrocities and violations of Armenia’s sovereignty understand that peace is more substantive than the short-term absence of overt military action.
Aliyev, with his unbridled attacks on Armenia’s sovereignty and its very existence, demonstrates that he treats the peace process more as an unconditional surrender.
Azerbaijan has a history of always having another issue that prevents signing a treaty. If it were truly committed to a peace deal, it would be more active in facilitating the closure of open items. Instead, there is a clear pattern of making difficult demands and keeping additional items on the table. The current precondition is Azerbaijan’s demand that any reference to the 1990 Declaration of Independence be removed from Armenia’s Constitution, since it interprets the reference as a territorial demand on Azerbaijan.
Many Armenians view this as meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign country. Armenia’s Constitutional Court reviewed the case and found no such territorial-demand risk. The Armenian government is pursuing constitutional changes as an internal matter. Azerbaijan is well aware of the complex process of amending the Constitution in a democracy such as Armenia. There is the legislative hurdle requiring two-thirds approval and then a popular referendum. By characterizing it as a nonnegotiable precondition, Azerbaijan ensures that it will take time and internal debate, which favors the Azerbaijanis.
Stepan Piligian