De facto peace: changes on the border

Armenia-Azerbaijan peace: myth or reality?

Three months have passed since the initialing of the peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

On August 8 of this year, in Washington, the foreign ministers of the two countries, in the presence of the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as the President of the United States, initialed the “Agreement on Peace and the Establishment of Inter-State Relations between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan.”

The parties had actually reached final agreement on the content of the document back on March 13, when both sides announced the completion of the negotiation process. However, the initialing of the agreement took place only five months later.

The Washington agreements were also met with positive assessments from the international community; positive responses followed from both the EU and Russia and despite some initial concerns, also from Iran.

“They have been fighting for 35 years, and now they are friends and will remain so for a long time,” U.S. President Trump stated at the initialing ceremony.

After the initialing, both sides declared at the highest level that the decades-long conflict had ended and that peace had been established between the two countries.

Over the past three months, such statements have been made repeatedly both by the Prime Minister of Armenia and by the President of Azerbaijan.

“Peace has been established between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan. Dear people, peace has been established between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan,” Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced in his address to the people after the initialing. He has repeated this statement on various occasions in his public speeches.

The President of Azerbaijan has also begun to speak in his public speeches about the establishment of peace. For example, on September 1 in China he stated: “Peace has already been established between our countries.”

But do these statements have a real basis? Can we say that Armenia and Azerbaijan are finally living in peace?

Waiting for the signing, or peace de jure

If we approach the issue from a legal perspective, the answer is negative. Peace de jure has not yet been established; only a step in that direction has been taken. We should also note that initialing is an intermediate legal status which merely expresses political will, without the full force of legal obligations.

According to the 1969 Vienna Convention, any international treaty enters into force only after signature and ratification.

These stages are still missing. Armenia has repeatedly stated that it is ready to sign and ratify the agreement at any moment. Azerbaijan’s position is different: immediately after the Washington meeting Ilham Aliyev once again put forward his preconditions, stating that the peace treaty will be signed if Armenia amends its Constitution and removes the reference to the Declaration of Independence.

He had noted that the official signing of the peace treaty should not be delayed if the document has already been initialed. He also expressed the hope that if Armenia’s Constitution is amended, “territorial claims against Azerbaijan will be excluded.” “Otherwise, it would be disrespectful first and foremost towards the United States of America,” Aliyev continued.

Some time later Aliyev explained why the peace agreement had not been signed. According to him, there is a specific reason: in Armenia’s Constitution “there is still a provision that calls into question the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.” “And when that constitutional amendment is made, when territorial claims against Azerbaijan are removed, an official peace agreement will be concluded,” Aliyev said on August 27.

Of course, the Armenian side has repeatedly reminded that, according to Article 12 of the peace agreement, “neither party may invoke the provisions of its domestic legislation as justification for the non-fulfilment of the Agreement.” So, from this perspective, the issue is settled. Moreover, back when discussing the regulations of the delimitation commissions, Armenia’s Constitutional Court had already recorded that the reference in the Preamble of the Constitution to the Declaration of Independence does not in any way signify a claim against the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

And in general, the reference in the Preamble of the Constitution to the RA Declaration of Independence in no way means a territorial claim against a neighboring country.

“The Constitutional Court concludes that the provision in the Preamble to the Constitution stating ‘basing itself on the fundamental principles of Armenian statehood and the nationwide goals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence’ does not relate to any principle or goal that is not established by the Constitution,” the Court’s decision states.

In other words, Azerbaijan’s concerns have no legal basis. At the same time, after the Washington initialing, Azerbaijan did take certain steps in particular, it lifted the ban on cargo transportation through the territory of Armenia. This can be regarded as one of the first serious steps in decades aimed at Armenian-Azerbaijani reconciliation.

At the same time, a group of experts from Azerbaijan arrived in Armenia to hold discussions and in essence, to launch the process of reconciling the societies. This too was a positive step. It is precisely such steps that provide grounds to speak about de facto peace.

Facts like these reinforce the Armenian authorities’ claims that peace has in fact been established.

The Armenian authorities maintain that de facto peace already exists. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has mentioned several times that over the past 1 year and 8 months the Armenian side has had no casualties on the border as a result of Azerbaijani fire, and therefore peace has been established.

Since the initialing of the peace agreement, not even irregular gunfire has been recorded on the border, and there is complete calm. This circumstance, to some extent, allows one to speak of peace.

Let us also add that in the past few days, following Aliyev’s statement about lifting the ban on cargo transportation to Armenia, trains loaded with wheat have arrived in Armenia from both Kazakhstan and Russia. Other cargo shipments are also expected.

Peace agreements, no matter how important they are, by their nature only confirm the existing reality. And for now, the European observers patrolling Armenia’s borders will remain in the country until the signing of the peace agreement.

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