With Azerbaijan ending its 30-year occupation by Armenia, an opportunity has emerged for the normalization of relations between the two countries and the return of peace to the South Caucasus.

Axar.az reports that Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said this in an interview.

He recalled that official Baku proposed to Yerevan to close the page of hostility in 2021, and this call remained unanswered for about a year:

“After presenting the five main points of the peace agreement to Armenia in the first months of 2022, discussions between the two countries began in October of that year. The first draft of the peace agreement was also written by Azerbaijan and presented to Armenia. The negotiations lasted about two and a half years. The discussions ended about a month ago, and an agreement was reached on the text. While the negotiations were ongoing, we informed Armenia and other countries interested in the process about these issues. There are important factors that need to be resolved. The most important of these is the inclusion of claims against the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan in the Armenian Constitution. As long as this continues, the signing of a peace agreement is impossible. It is necessary to change the Armenian Constitution.”

The minister noted that another condition of Azerbaijan is related to the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group, which was created in the 1990s to resolve the Karabakh conflict:

“The OSCE Minsk Group has not achieved any results for 30 years. The Karabakh issue has already been resolved, and these territories are part of Azerbaijan. Armenia has also accepted this. In this case, Armenia's continued efforts to continue the activities of the Minsk Group raise questions for us. We persistently demand and expect the dissolution of the Minsk Group.”