Azerbaijan, Armenia publish text of US-brokered peace deal
The deal was struck in Washington last Friday, when Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House.
The text of the agreement, which was initialled by the countries' foreign ministers, says Yerevan and Baku will relinquish all claims to each other's territory, refrain from using force against one another and pledge to respect international law.
"This agreement is a solid foundation for establishing a reliable and lasting peace, the result of an agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan that reflects the balanced interests of the two countries," Pashinyan wrote on Facebook.
Armenia and Azerbaijan, neighbours in the South Caucasus region, have been locked in conflict since the late 1980s over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region at the southern end of the Karabakh mountain range, within Azerbaijan. Baku took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting almost all of the territory's 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
The European Union, NATO member Turkey and Russia have welcomed the accord, although Moscow, a traditional broker and ally of Armenia, was left out and warned against foreign meddling.
The deal explicitly bans the deployment of third-party forces along the countries' shared border, a possible reference to Russia, which has previously deployed peacekeepers to the region and still has extensive military and security interests in Armenia.
The European Union also has a mission deployed at the border to monitor ceasefire violations, which Baku has repeatedly demanded it withdraw.
The peace deal has not yet been signed by the two rivals, who both gained their independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
In a major hurdle to peace, Azerbaijan is demanding that Armenia change its constitution, which Baku says makes an implicit claim on Azerbaijani territory.
On Monday, Baku said "further actions" were required to sign the peace agreement, including amendments to Armenia's constitution that would "eliminate territorial claims against Azerbaijan."
Aliyev, who has led Azerbaijan since 2003, told reporters in Washington last week that Yerevan "has some homework to do" regarding its founding charter, adding that after the changes have been made, "the peace agreement can be signed at any time."
Pashinyan this year called for a referendum to change the constitution, but no date for it has been set yet.
The potential peace deal would transform the South Caucasus, an energy-rich region neighbouring Russia, Europe, Turkey and Iran that is criss-crossed by oil and gas pipelines but has been hamstrung by closed borders and decades-old ethnic conflicts.
At the White House meeting on Friday, the United States gained exclusive development rights to a strategic transit corridor in the region that the Trump administration said would boost bilateral economic ties and allow for greater exports of energy.
The management and development of that corridor, which will run through southern Armenia and connect most of Azerbaijani territory with Nakhchivan, an Azerbaijani exclave that borders Baku's ally Turkey, was also a stumbling block to initial peace efforts.
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