President Aliyev names main factor hindering Azerbaijan-Armenia concensus

President Ilham Aliyev has said that the recognition of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity by Armenia would facilitate agreements upon other points of a peace treaty between the two countries.

"I think that after the Armenian leadership’s recent statements on the recognition of Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, as well as the recognition of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan with specific figures for the area of the Republic of Azerbaijan, it will be much easier to agree on other points of the peace treaty because that was the main factor on which we could not come to terms," Aliyev said in a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on May 25 in Moscow, reports the Kremlin's press service.

President Aliyev added that today in the trilateral format is expected to help the sides take another step towards the normalisation of relations between the two nations. 

Armenia and Azerbaijan have long been at odds over the latter’s Karabakh (Garabagh) region. Following the Soviet Union’s dissolution in 1991, Armenia launched a military campaign against Azerbaijan that lasted until a ceasefire deal was reached in 1994. As a result, Armenia occupied 20 per cent of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territories. Over 30,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis were killed, and one million were expelled from those lands in a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign carried out by Armenia.

On September 27, 2020, the decades-old conflict between the two countries spiralled after Armenia’s forces deployed in occupied Azerbaijani lands shelled military positions and civilian settlements of Azerbaijan. During counter-attack operations, Azerbaijani forces liberated over 300 settlements, including the cities of Jabrayil, Fuzuli, Zangilan, Gubadli, and Shusha, from a nearly 30-year-long illegal Armenian occupation. The war ended in a statement signed on November 10, 2020, under which Armenia also returned the occupied Aghdam, Kalbajar, and Lachin districts to Azerbaijan.

After the war of 2020, the Azerbaijani authorities voiced readiness and determination to launch negotiations with Armenia that would ultimately bring the long-awaited peace to the region. In February 2022, Baku submitted a peace proposal containing five principles as a basis for a peace agreement with Armenia.

President Aliyev asserted that if Armenia does not miss this chance, an era of peace and cooperation could finally start in the South Caucasus.

However, Armenia's demands reflecting territorial claims against Azerbaijan have been putting a stick to the negotiations process. Yerevan is convinced that the Armenian residents of Karabakh, the number of which is claimed in Armenian sources to be "120,000", should get so-called "self-determination" rights. Armenia also demanded special status for the Armenian-populated portion of Karabakh, which they call “Artsakh” or the “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic”, while Baku rejected these claims as a threat to the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

According to Azerbaijani official data, up to 25,000 ethnic Armenians live in certain parts of Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region, temporarily monitored by the Russian peacekeeping contingent.

Since late 2020, Azerbaijani authorities have been calling on ethnic Armenians residing in the Karabakh region to eliminate anti-Azerbaijan propaganda and take steps to become part of Azerbaijani society. The authorities of Azerbaijan have repeatedly rejected the existence of a territorial unit called “Nagorno-Karabakh”. For the Azerbaijani government and people, the territory partially settled by the Armenian population is Karabakh or the Karabakh economic region on official documents.