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The document adopted by Armenia’s first post-communist parliament announced the “beginning of the process of establishing an independent state.” The document also referred to the unification act adopted in 1989 by the legislatures of Soviet Armenia and the then Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast.
This declaration is also cited in the preamble of the 1995 Armenian Constitution, which has been amended several times since then. In recent months, Azerbaijani leaders have often stated that this statement is equivalent to making territorial claims against Azerbaijan. They have made it clear that the signing of the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty is conditional on the abolition of the treaty.
Pashinyan criticized the 1990 declaration before Baku publicly set this precondition. He said in February that peace with Azerbaijan was impossible as long as the document was mentioned in the constitution.
The only legal way to remove the clause would be to adopt a new constitution through a referendum. Pashinyan announced that plan earlier this year, leading his critics to claim he was once again capitulating to Azerbaijan’s demands.
Pashinyan appeared to change his tone in a statement Friday congratulating the Armenian people on the 34th anniversary of the 1990 Declaration of Independence. He said that “contrary to various interpretations,” the constitutional reference in question “does not mean that the entire content of the Declaration of Independence is contained in the Constitution of Armenia, nor that the contents of the two documents are identical.”
Pashinyan added that the constitution “reflects only the provisions directly and literally expressed in the declaration, and any other interpretation is inappropriate”, without specifying Baku’s demands.
Pashinyan recently reiterated his plans to amend the constitution on July 5, after he ordered a special government body to draft a new fundamental law by the end of 2026.
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