Azerbaijan-Armenia peace talks: The status quo and an emerging diplomatic breakthrough

The following article is based on research conducted under the State Department’s Title VIII Fellowship, for the Black Sea Program at MEI. During summer 2024, the author conducted a series of interviews with senior government officials, policymakers, and experts in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the United States. All interviews were conducted on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter and the interviewees’ involvement in ongoing peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
 

Bleak political realities and flashpoints of conflict often paradoxically create opportunities for diplomatic breakthroughs. The art of foreign policy statecraft lies in seizing these moments and transforming crises into catalysts for change. Azerbaijan's takeover of Karabakh in September 2023, while a disruptive event, has opened the window for renewed dialogue to peacefully resolve the longstanding tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia. While the ongoing negotiations are unlikely to lead to a comprehensive peace deal in the near term, they could alter the strategic calculus of key actors in the region. The most likely and consequential outcome of the talks will be a peace framework agreement that could pave the way for Armenian-Turkish normalization. A rapprochement between Armenia and Turkey, in turn, could prove to be the linchpin in rebalancing the regional status quo, making a future peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan more probable.

The present iteration of peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan began in the aftermath of the 2020 Second Karabakh War. Despite increased high-level meetings under Russian and international mediation until early 2023, negotiations failed to yield substantial progress, in part due to Armenia’s delayed recognition and acceptance of the new balance of power that had emerged in the aftermath of the 2020 conflict in Baku’s favor. Yerevan’s gradual adjustment to this shifted reality, among other factors, ultimately preceded Azerbaijan’s takeover of the whole of Karabakh in September of 2023. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government in Armenia was by then convinced of the shift in the regional balance of power and entered bilateral negotiations with Azerbaijan — this time with increased compromises, including indirectly conceding that Karabakh was lost.

While there has been notable progress in the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks, the negotiations are still far from achieving a comprehensive peace settlement. This is due to several major deadlocks that will require tough concessions and are likely to be time-consuming to resolve. These deadlocks include demands for changes to Armenia’s constitution by Azerbaijan, disagreements over border delimitation, and the establishment of a new Zangezur corridor — an overland transit route that would connect mainland Azerbaijan with its Nakhchivan exclave via southern Armenia.

The constitution issue

Azerbaijan is demanding amendments to the Armenian constitution, which currently contains references that could be interpreted as claiming Karabakh as part of Armenia.¹ The Armenian constitution’s preamble refers to the 1990 Declaration of Independence, which in turn mentions the joint decision of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic and Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast to reunify. Given that this demand touches on core issues of sovereignty and national identity for both Azerbaijan and Armenia, it will be exceptionally difficult to resolve quickly.

Azerbaijan views the demanded constitutional changes as essential for consolidating its recent gains and preventing future legal challenges to any agreement. However, for Armenia, especially Pashinyan’s government, making such fundamental changes to the constitution is politically treacherous as it could be seen as abandoning a core national aspiration, potentially triggering domestic backlash.

The complexity of this issue is further exacerbated by concerns in Baku regarding potential government changes in Armenia. The protests in Yerevan, which erupted in September 2023, following the Azerbaijani forces’ retaking of Karabakh, and which have intensified since then, have heightened vigilance in Azerbaijan, which is “closely monitoring opposition movements in Armenia,” according to a senior Azerbaijani policy expert.² By insisting on constitutional changes now, Azerbaijan aims to prevent a future, potentially more conservative, Armenian government from using legal grounds to contest the agreement.

Given these positions and the domestic political realities in both countries, negotiating a mutually acceptable solution to the constitutional issue is likely to be a protracted process. While each side might agree on a framework for future negotiations, a comprehensive peace deal resolving all issues, including constitutional changes, remains a distant prospect. A framework document could acknowledge the need to address constitutional matters without committing to specific changes, allowing both sides to claim progress while deferring the most contentious decisions.

Border delimitation

Although there has been progress on border delimitation, as evidenced by Pashinyan’s efforts to demarcate villages along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, these actions have sparked notable domestic opposition in Armenia.³ The internal pushback speaks to the sensitivity of the issue, making the delimitation process a politically charged undertaking.

Armenia has agreed to proceed with delimitation based on the Alma-Ata agreement of 1991, which recognized the 1976 Soviet administrative borders of the republics as international borders.⁴ However, the situation on the ground presents substantial challenges. Azerbaijan currently occupies territories beyond the Soviet-era borders, including areas it captured during the 2020 conflict and subsequent military actions. These include strategic heights and buffer zones that Azerbaijan views as vital for its security. Baku’s reluctance to relinquish these territories creates a considerable gap between the legal principle both sides ostensibly agree to and the reality of current control.

The disparity between Armenia's insistence on the Alma-Ata principles and Azerbaijan’s de facto control of territories beyond these lines is too wide to bridge quickly. Instead, a framework document could acknowledge the principle of using the Alma-Ata agreement as a basis for delimitation while leaving the details of implementation and potential adjustments for future negotiations. This approach would allow both sides to claim progress without immediately resolving the complex issues of actual border demarcation and control. A phased, step-by-step border delimitation process through a framework document is more likely to yield progress on actual demarcation efforts than attempting an immediate, comprehensive peace deal.

The Zangezur corridor

The proposed Zangezur corridor, a transportation route through southern Armenia connecting mainland Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan, represents yet another major point of contention in talks.

Azerbaijan views the establishment of this corridor as essential for its national security and economic interests. Baku is insisting on security guarantees for people using the corridor, but the specifics of those security arrangements have become a key point of disagreement. Initially, Azerbaijan suggested that Russia could provide these security guarantees. However, this proposal faced resistance, likely due to Armenia’s efforts to diversify its international relations away from a dependency on Moscow.⁵ As a result, new options are now being considered, including the potential involvement of European third-party security contractors.⁶

Armenia’s position on the proposed corridor is cautious. While not entirely opposed to the concept, Yerevan insists on maintaining full sovereignty over any route through its territory and demands reciprocal security guarantees for its citizens using transportation links through Azerbaijani territory. This demand for reciprocity has been met with reluctance from Azerbaijan, creating an impasse.

The issue is further complicated by other regional players. The corridor has been strongly advocated by both Azerbaijan and Turkey since 2020, with Russia acting as a security guarantor. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has criticized Armenia for delaying the implementation of agreements concerning the corridor, signaling Moscow’s alignment with Baku on this issue. In response, Iran has voiced strong opposition to any arrangement that alters the current borders in the South Caucasus and its direct access to Armenia, and by extension, to Georgia and the Black Sea. Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have reiterated concerns that the establishment of the corridor could cut off one of Iran's key trade routes to Europe. The new reformist government in Tehran has gone further, warning Russia over the corridor's establishment and cautioning against siding with Azerbaijan in the issue.

Resolving the deadlock over the Zangezur corridor will necessitate lengthy negotiations and careful consideration of various stakeholders’ interests. A framework document could potentially address this issue by acknowledging the principle of establishing new transportation links between Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan through Armenian territory, while deferring the specifics of security arrangements and operational details to future negotiations.

A peace framework agreement is a step forward toward a future peace deal

For talks to deliver a comprehensive peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan, both sides should enter negotiations from a relatively equal position of power. In the present status quo, this equilibrium is absent. The Second Karabakh War, in 2020, and Azerbaijan’s subsequent retaking of Karabakh in 2023 have left Armenia in a much-weakened position, both militarily and diplomatically. The imbalance is further exacerbated by Azerbaijan’s strategic partnership with Israel and strong alliance with Turkey, as an Azerbaijani security expert stated: “Baku’s strong alliance with Tel Aviv considerably augmented Azerbaijan’s military capabilities relative to Armenia’s.”⁷

Pashinyan recognizes this power disparity and is pursuing a strategy of placing foreign policy diversification at the top of his government’s agenda to narrow the imbalance.⁸ To that end, normalizing relations with Turkey has become a more pressing short-term goal for Armenia than achieving a settlement with Azerbaijan. After a series of diplomatic initiatives, including the appointment of special envoys by Armenia and Turkey in December 2021 and four rounds of talks in 2022, progress toward reconciliation began to take shape. In July 2022, the two countries agreed to permit visiting third-country nationals to cross their shared border, and they approved mutual direct cargo flights; but these plans stalled due to Azerbaijan’s opposition.⁹ Turkey has made it clear: progress with Armenia depends on an Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement. But paradoxically, the diplomatic domino effect of Armenian-Turkish normalization could rebalance the regional power structure and strengthen the Armenian position in future negotiations, eventually creating the conditions for a breakthrough in Armenian-Azerbaijan normalization towards reaching a comprehensive peace deal.

On the Azerbaijani side, President Ilham Aliyev is seeking a peace framework agreement with Armenia as a means to consolidate his country’s recent military gains. Namely, such an agreement would help legitimize Azerbaijan’s victories and solidify its 2023 de facto control of Karabakh to ensure broader acceptance of the postbellum status quo on the international stage. Aliyev is also pushing to sign this agreement before Azerbaijan hosts the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference (29th Conference of the Parties, COP29), aiming to leverage the platform to showcase its diplomatic achievements on the global stage as well as attract foreign investments, particularly from Western countries.¹⁰

A comprehensive Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal may be distant, but all sides have practical reasons to pursue a framework agreement. This initial accord could be a major catalyst for setting in motion a broader process of regional normalization and economic integration. As such, Yerevan and Baku, as well as the international community at large, should not underestimate the value of incremental progress toward this goal.

Omer Niazi is MEI Department of State Black Sea Title VIII Research Fellow at the Middle East Institute, a Policy Fellow at the Fund for Constitutional Government, a Mason Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, and a Graduate Researcher at Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Omer is also the Founder and Chair of the Council on International Law, Order, and Security, a DC-based policy research think tank.