The border issue has been one of the main sticking points in ongoing talks on the treaty. Hikmet Hajiyev, a top foreign policy adviser to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, said last week that Baku believes "the border delimitation issue should be kept separate from peace treaty discussions." Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov likewise noted afterwards that the treaty cannot “ensure a 100 percent solution to all issues.”
“It is extremely important for us that the future delimitation process is predictable and its principles, its foundations are fixed in the peace agreement,” said Mirzoyan. “For us, a reference to [concrete] maps would be such a way of ensuring that predictability without predetermining the results [of the process.]”
The Armenian government has insisted, at least until now, on using specific Soviet military maps for that purpose. Baku rejects the idea backed by the European Union.
Speaking at a joint news conference with Iran’s visiting Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Mirzoyan said the conflicting sides continue to discuss the “possibility of incorporating maps” into the peace accord.
“We don’t have the final text of the agreement,” he said. “Therefore, nobody can tell what the end result of the negotiations will be.”
Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonian indicated last Friday that Yerevan could agree to sign the treaty before the border delimitation. Armenian opposition leaders expressed serious concern over such a possibility, saying that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government is ready to make more concessions to Baku without securing anything in return.
Pashinian and other Armenian officials themselves suggested this summer that Aliyev wants to leave the door open for future territorial claims to Armenia. Some Armenian analysts believe this is the reason why Aliyev keeps delaying further negotiations mediated by the United States and the European Union.
Mirzoyan on Wednesday listed the “avoidance of high-level meetings” among “negative signals” coming from Baku. He said at the same time that Yerevan hopes the Azerbaijani side will adopt a “more constructive” stance in the coming weeks.