SHUSHA: Azerbaijan and Armenia are at “real peace” and rebuilding trade links after decades of conflict, a senior Azerbaijani official told Reuters, but Baku is insisting on changes to Armenia’s constitution before a final deal can be signed.
The South Caucasus neighbors had been at intermittent war since the late 1980s, mostly over the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh, before reaching a preliminary US-brokered peace agreement last August.
For Azerbaijan, a sticking point to signing a formal deal is the preamble of Armenia’s constitution, which contains a reference to another Soviet-era document calling for the reunification of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, then an autonomous region in Soviet Azerbaijan.
The territory had de facto independence and was governed by an ethnically Armenian administration for three decades before Azerbaijan took it in a lightning offensive in 2023. Most of its 100,000 population fled to Armenia.
A lasting peace could reopen trade and transport links across the South Caucasus, strengthening connections between Asia and Europe while reshaping the regional influence of Russia, Turkiye and Iran.
