The year 2025 opened with critical developments in the ongoing peace negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the long-disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. On January 7, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev escalated his combative rhetoric against Armenia, calling it “a fascist state in its nature” during an interview with local media. His allegations came just days after Azerbaijan’s Defence Ministry accused the Armenian military of instigating unrest along the southeastern border. Aliyev reiterated that Armenia posed a continuing threat to regional stability, asserting that “fascism must be destroyed by Armenian leadership, or we will do it ourselves.”
The episode reflects the deep-rooted aggressive and exclusionary narratives, underlying a zero-sum mentality, long promoted by the political leadership of both countries. This political discourse had not only heightened the perception of threat from their respective neighbour, but also led to the crystallisation of a national identity intrinsically linked to the denial and erasure of the other. Ever since the first conflict between 1991 and 1994, both sides not only remained resolute in their positions on Nagorno-Karabakh, but also unequivocally rejected their respective cultural and historical claims to the territory. This unwillingness to compromise was further underscored by the repeated ceasefire violations over the years, suggesting the purely formal nature of the often-deployed term ‘frozen conflict’. As a result, the issue not only remained unresolved, but flared up, leading to a gradual escalation of tensions that culminated in the clashes of 2016, 2020, and ultimately the rapid Azerbaijani offensive of September 2023. The two-day assault ended with the surrender of the Nagorno-Karabakh authorities and Azerbaijan’s full control over the entire region for the first time, marking a definitive conclusion to the brutal and contentious dispute between the two countries over the region.
From a domestic perspective, such a persistence of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict throughout successive presidencies suggests a lack of sincere commitment from the ruling class towards achieving a final and definitive resolution. Indeed, the identification of an “external enemy” is often deployed as a tactic to keep the country in a constant state of alert that can justify the imposition of restrictions on civil and political rights. In other words, the perpetuation of the status quo was congenial to the political and economic elites to establish and then secure their positions of power.
However, in contrast to Baku’s harsh accusations, reflecting the traditional nationalist approach, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s response appealing for de-escalation signals a shift in strategy within Armenia’s political elite. Since 2020, Pashinyan has progressively moved away from the hard-line stance of his predecessors towards a more moderate political discourse. In addition to dismissing the allegations of ceasefire violations by the Armenian army as disinformation, the Premier replied: “We will not use the language of aggression, but the language of dialogue. We will continue to focus on demarcation, on agreeing on the text of the peace treaty, [and on an] agreement on humanitarian issues”. More broadly, the Pashinyan administration seems to have acknowledged the necessity of definitively setting aside the long-standing Nagorno-Karabakh issue, recognising that reunification claims could potentially threaten Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and, by extension, Armenia’s security. However, the government continues to face the difficult task of balancing the prevailing Armenian nationalist sentiment with Azerbaijan’s assertive demands, an ongoing challenge that ultimately led to the failure to finalise a peace agreement scheduled for 2023.
In particular, the ongoing negotiations for a peace agreement with Azerbaijan highlight how foreign policy developments are closely intertwined with Armenia’s domestic politics, especially constitutional matters. On this latter point, in January 2024, Pashinyan expressed his intention to provide Armenia with an entirely new Constitution that would be submitted to a popular vote for full democratic legitimacy. To this end, he convened a Constitutional Reform Council for the third time, entrusting it with drafting a new constitutional framework from scratch by January 2027. However, detailed specifications of the new constitutional provisions have not yet been determined, as their definition is significantly dependent upon the progress of the negotiations with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. Specifically, the new constitutional project must first reconcile the contentious issue of the preamble to the Armenian Constitution, which Baku strongly demands be removed, as it references the 1990 Declaration of Independence calling for the “Reunification of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Mountainous Region of Karabakh”. Indeed, Pashinyan had already referred to the potential confrontational rhetoric stemming from the declaration, foreshadowing his openness for negotiations on the issue.
However, his administration must contend with, on the one hand, an opposition that accuses him of bowing to Azerbaijan’s will and, on the other hand, the deep-rooted intransigent and nationalist mentality among the Armenian population, which already caused severe setbacks in his popularity after the two defeats in Nagorno-Karabakh. This last aspect could potentially become a major obstacle to the approval of the referendum on the new Constitution, particularly if the electorate perceives the motivation behind it as yielding to pressure from Baku.
In conclusion, the ongoing negotiations over the Nagorno-Karabakh peace agreement represent a pivotal issue for Armenia, as a resolution is crucial not only for security concerns but also domestically, to drive a decisive and permanent institutional change through a new Constitution. Indeed, the Pashinyan administration’s willingness to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh issue permanently could be seen as an attempt to turn over a new leaf, breaking with political dogmas and taking an encouraging first step toward genuine democratisation. While the identification of an external threat has enabled previous political elites to sustain a perpetual state of alert, diverting attention from domestic political concerns and justifying a centralised and unilateral seizure of power, the definitive loss of the region could potentially spark a renewed democratic spirit, refocusing efforts on addressing domestic challenges without channelling blame for such deficiencies onto an external scapegoat. Yet, the core question remains whether Armenia can sustain its current promising direction as long as the Nagorno-Karabakh and other disputes with Azerbaijan impasse continues to obstruct the country’s transitional process.
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