Azerbaijan’s claims that the constitution of Armenia prevents the signing of a peace treaty with Azerbaijan are refuted by the principles on which the leaders of the two countries have agreed—at least on a preliminary level. The deputy speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia, Ruben Rubinyan, on Friday stated this at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum—and responding to the statement by Hikmet Hajiyev, aide to the president of Azerbaijan, that the Azerbaijani side is waiting for the clarification of the content of the constitution of Armenia.

“The constitution and the legal framework of Armenia are our internal affairs. This has nothing to do with the processes of achieving peace. Armenia has no territorial demands from Azerbaijan, and this has been stated many times—even in the joint statements of the president of Azerbaijan and the prime minister of Armenia. In the draft peace agreement that is being negotiated, there are two points that have been agreed on at the bilateral level—at least initially. First, it is clearly written that the [two] countries recognize each other’s territorial integrity, do not and will not have any territorial claims against each other in the future. Second, the [two] countries will not rely on their domestic legislation to avoid this agreement. The best way to convince each other that we do not and will not demand anything from each other in territorial issues is to sign a peace agreement,” Rubinyan said.

According to him, Hajiyev says that it is not a panacea.

“As far as I know, Mr. Hajiyev likes to repeat that signing a peace treaty is not ‘rocket science.’ I have to agree with him here. If we have confirmed it—at least at the leadership level, then only technical work remains. Unfortunately, we do not see the willingness of the Azerbaijani side to reflect these agreed principles on paper, but we hope that something will change,” said the deputy speaker of the Armenian parliament.