The authorship of the text of the initial peace agreement primarily belonged to Baku, while Yerevan has, throughout this period, only attempted to make certain adjustments to the original text. From this perspective, the document cannot be said to reflect Armenia’s interests. This was stated by political analyst Tigran Grigoryan.
In his assessment, Azerbaijan largely imposed this document on Armenia as the defeated party in the war. The last two concessions by the Armenian side were made publicly in March of this year, agreeing to include provisions on withdrawing claims from international courts and excluding the presence of third-party forces at the borders. “Here, of course, the reference is to the European monitoring mission, which Azerbaijan initially opposed,” he noted.
According to Grigoryan, the most concerning part of the text of the initialed peace agreement is Article 8, which states that “The Parties condemn and will combat intolerance, racial hatred and discrimination, separatism, violent extremism, and terrorism in all their forms within their respective jurisdictions and will comply with their corresponding international obligations.”
“This article carries serious threats because, given the existing imbalance of power, Azerbaijan will freely interpret this provision, treating various processes and statements occurring in Armenia as violations of this article of the peace agreement. For example, any statements concerning the rights of Artsakh Armenians could be interpreted as promoting separatism. In Yerevan, there are monuments to the heroes of the First Artsakh War, and some streets are named after them—Azerbaijan could insist on changing all of this. At the same time, Armenia will not be able to do the same. The principle of reciprocity will not apply. In other words, the provisions of the agreement are only formally reciprocal; in reality, there will be no reciprocity because of the imbalance of power. If Azerbaijan’s demands are not met or if its interpretation of the provisions of the document is not followed, it will use this as a pretext to escalate the situation,” he noted.
All of this will occur regardless of the clause in the same agreement concerning non-interference in internal affairs. Moreover, Article 4, by which the parties commit not to interfere in each other’s internal affairs, will also be used by Baku to suppress any discussions about the rights of Artsakh Armenians.