Armenia and Azerbaijan agree to peace treaty after nearly four decades of war

(CNN) — Armenian and Azerbaijani officials said Thursday that both countries have agreed to a peace agreement set to end nearly four decades of conflict between the two post-Soviet countries.

The neighboring countries have been engaged in a decades-long conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a breakaway region in the Caucasus Mountains that was home to around 120,000 ethnic Armenians. The region is internationally considered part of Azerbaijan but for decades was under the control of Armenian separatists.

The breakthrough in the two nations’ protracted peace process came on Thursday, with Armenia’s foreign ministry saying in a statement that the Peace Agreement is “ready for signing.”

Armenia accepted Azerbaijan’s proposals on “the two unresolved articles” of the draft agreement, the Armenian foreign ministry statement detailed.

“One of the two articles concerns the issue of not deploying forces from third countries along the border. The other concerns the mutual withdrawal of claims from international instances and the commitment not to take actions against each other,” Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said to journalists Thursday, according to Armenia’s state news agency Armenpress.

Azerbaijan confirmed the success of the peace talks. “We note with satisfaction that the negotiations on the text of the draft Agreement on Peace and the Establishment of Interstate Relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia have been concluded,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

However, hurdles remain. Azerbaijan also said Armenia’s constitution must “eliminate the claims against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan,” as a prerequisite to allow for the signing of the peace treaty.

“We are ready to continue the bilateral dialogue on these and other issues related to the normalization process between the two countries,” the statement said.

Armenia’s leader said Thursday there had been “no discussions” regarding Baku’s demand that Armenia amend its constitution, Armenpress reported.

“After the Constitutional Court’s decision last year, it is clear that the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia does not contain territorial claims against Azerbaijan or any other country. Secondly, we believe that Azerbaijan’s Constitution includes claims toward the Republic of Armenia,” Pashinyan said, according to Armenpress.

The Armenian leader stressed that the agreed text of the draft peace agreement “addresses and resolves all these concerns,” Armenpress reported.

While Armenia’s statement did not reference its constitution, last month Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called for a “national referendum” to adopt a new constitution without setting a date for the vote or specifying what changes would be contained in a new draft, Reuters reported.

Armenia and Azerbaijan had already fought two wars over Nagorno-Karabakh since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and ceasefire agreements between them had proven brittle. The conflict flared again in September 2023, when a lightning 24-hour assault saw Azerbaijan regain total control of Nagorno-Karabakh, prompting the region’s ethnic Armenian population to flee to Armenia within a week.

CNN’s Christian Edwards and Max Saltman contributed reporting.

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