On December 10, 2024, the international conference titled “The Main Obstacle to the Peace Agreement Between Azerbaijan and Armenia” was held. Organized by the Center of Analysis of International Relations (AIR Center), the conference mainly focused on Armenia’s territorial claims against Azerbaijan in its Constitution, which is the supreme law of the country, as well as in other forms of official documentation.

In his introductory remarks, AIR Center’s Chairman of the Board, Farid Shafiyev, touched on the importance of academic exchanges in terms of finding solutions to the remaining unresolved issues in a peace track between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

“Azerbaijan extended a hand to Armenia despite 30 years of Armenian occupation. I want to underline that it was Azerbaijan who proposed the peace agreement. Some media outlets deliberately try to portray Azerbaijan as a belligerent side by completely erasing the events that had happened before 2020. Obviously, the history of this problem has not started in 2020; it has started before.”

Farid Shafiyev went on saying that in order to achieve an effective and result-oriented dialogue, journalist and media consultant Onnik J. Krikorian, currently residing in Georgia, was invited to address the conference, while the Armenian academic circles lack this practice.

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan Elnur Mammadov stressed that Azerbaijan was the first party to offer peace and normalization to Armenia.

“That was the right move, and we still stand by that decision. For some time, we did not have any reciprocity from the other side.”

The Deputy Foreign Minister elaborated on the major obstacles to the peace treaty between Azerbaijan and Armenia. He noted that one of those obstacles is Armenia’s constitutional framework. Having said that, Elnur Mammadov underlined that this is not a hypothetical risk, because if taken into consideration, the argumentation of opposition groups in this country, the risk of the document being nullified or being considered null and void from the very beginning is very high.

According to Elnur Mammadov, the second major obstacle is Armenian officials’ ambiguity. Thus, they demonstrate one position on the negotiating table, and then take the completely opposite position in international courts and legal proceedings brought by Armenia against Azerbaijan, which is quite ironic.

In terms of Armenia’s position in the international courts, Elnur Mammadov said that there are two subpoints here.

“First, international courts and, specifically, I am talking about the European Court of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice. And the second, the position taken by the Armenian government in the international organizations, such as the UN, OSCE and other organizations where the Armenian government has kept on distributing documents on behalf of the “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic” and that was still happening in 2021, 2022 until 2023. And now, after 2023, we have new documents from the so- called refugees from the NKR. And that is obviously still posing a lot of issues as to the consistency of Armenia’s position. We have been raising these issues consistently during negotiations that you cannot have two contradicting positions here at the negotiating table and there at the ECHR and ICJ. You have to take a clear position,” he added.

Elnur Mammadov went on saying that these are the questions that need to be answered in order to clarify whether that is a genuine path to peace or it is just a kind of tactical decision to delay the process, but still the fundamental position would still be reserved for the future and then Armenia will come back and reject the earlier reached agreements.

The international conference was followed by the speeches from Member of Milli Majlis Erkin Gadirli, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Law at ADA University Javid Gadirli.

Georgia-based Onnik J. Krikorian spoke about the roots of referendum history in Armenia and the Armenian people's mistrust in constitutional reforms.

Vice-Rector at Kadir Has University Mitat Çelikpala said that Armenia’s Declaration of Independence of August 1990 contains territorial claims not only against Azerbaijan but also against Türkiye.

The second panel also saw former UK ambassador to Azerbaijan James Sharp's presentation on a "Good Friday" agreement, which could possibly serve as a model for Armenia-Azerbaijan peace talks.

Moreover, Professor of political science and director of the Council of Europe supported School of Public Policy, Zhidas Daskalovski, spoke about the importance of the Prespa agreement and North Macedonia's experience of constitutional reforms.