The Constitution of Armenia and its amendments are internal affairs of Armenia – Arushiak Jurhakian |

Arusyak Julhakyan, a member of the RA NA delegation, speaks in Parliament

RA NA delegation participates in the work of the third annual session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg .

Arusyak Julhakyan, a member of the Royal Armenian Air Force delegation, said in his speech:

“Dear Colleagues,

While discussing the progress report of the General Assembly, allow me to take this opportunity to update you on the latest developments in the process of normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

On April 19 this year, the Armenian and Azerbaijani committees responsible for demarcating the border between the two countries reached an important agreement. The parties agreed that the border demarcation process would be based on the 1991 Almaty Declaration. According to the agreement, the parties agreed on the sections of the border line in the northern part of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in order to bring it into line with the legal inter-republican borders that existed at the time of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Since then, more than 12 kilometers of the border line have been demarcated, and border guards of both countries are deployed along the agreed sections of the border line.

This was indeed a positive and stabilizing step towards the normalization process. However, 10 days later, the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan held negotiations on a peace agreement in the symbolic city of Almaty, but no substantial progress was made due to Azerbaijan’s reluctance to reflect the already reached agreements in the treaty. In addition, Azerbaijan put forward new preconditions, declaring that they would be ready to sign a peace treaty only after Armenia amends its constitution, as they believe that there are territorial claims in the constitutional provisions, which is not the case.

Armenia recognizes the territorial integrity and inviolability of borders of all its neighbours. Armenia is committed to this principle and has no ambitions for its internationally recognized territory of 29,743 square kilometres.

The Armenian Constitution and its amendments are Armenia’s internal affairs. We believe that Baku officials’ attempts to interfere in Armenia’s internal discussions are gross interference in Armenia’s internal affairs.

Such statements undermine the peace process and cast doubt on the Azerbaijani leadership’s sincerity in achieving peace.

In addition to the above, Azerbaijan has recently started to regularly spread information about Armenia’s violations of the ceasefire regime, as it does every time Azerbaijan is ready to provoke another escalation.

On June 15, the Prime Minister of Armenia announced that the Government of the Republic of Armenia was unwilling to allow the tension to continue and proposed that Azerbaijan establish a bilateral mechanism to investigate violations of the ceasefire regime. So far, Azerbaijan has not responded.

Dear colleagues, Azerbaijan’s predictions of an escalation of the regional situation at every opportunity are worrying and confirm the analysis of some think tanks that Azerbaijan will do everything to undermine the process of reaching a peace agreement with Armenia in order to launch new aggression against Armenia after the UN Climate Change Conference to be held in Baku in November this year.

I draw your and the international community’s attention to this, and also to the fact that the official proposal from Yerevan to reach a peace agreement within a month has still not been responded to by the official Baku.

Thanks.”

National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia