{"id":461,"date":"2024-10-28T15:33:48","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T11:33:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/?p=461"},"modified":"2024-11-01T15:34:27","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T11:34:27","slug":"cop29-and-armenia-azerbaijan-relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/archives\/461","title":{"rendered":"COP29 and Armenia-Azerbaijan Relations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Azerbaijan\u00a0will host<\/a>\u00a0the United Nations Framework Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP 29) from November 11 to 22, 2024. The global event is expected to attract up to 100,000 participants, including heads of state and government from over 180 countries, to Baku, the capital of the South Caucasus republic.<\/p>\n

As the country presiding over the summit, Azerbaijan has called for a\u00a0global truce<\/a>\u00a0during the conference, urging all nations involved in conflicts to cease hostilities during the event and one week before and after. \u201cAzerbaijan continues and will exert additional efforts to make Cop yet another success story with regard to peace, and to make COP29 a Cop of peace alongside the climate action issue,\u201d\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to President Ilham Aliyev, in an interview with\u00a0The Observer<\/em>\u00a0in Baku, adding that \u201cWe are actively working on the advancement the peace agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the outset, Azerbaijan\u2019s\u00a0COP29 story<\/a>\u00a0was linked with the peace and security agenda, as Azerbaijan\u2019s neighbor Armenia, the country with which Azerbaijan was in a violent conflict until recently, supported Baku\u2019s bid to host COP29 in a historic agreement between the two South Caucasian countries on\u00a0December 7, 2023<\/a>. The agreement also included a clause on exchanging prisoners detained by the sides in different situations since the end of the 2020 Karabakh War. The breakthrough was internationally lauded by several countries, including the\u00a0United States\u00a0<\/a>and the\u00a0European Union<\/a>\u00a0(EU).<\/p>\n

However, in the year since the December 7 agreement, Baku and Yerevan have failed to make tangible progress toward signing a peace treaty, with unresolved issues continuing to hinder prospects for a lasting agreement. Based on a broader seventeen-article peace agreement, Armenia has proposed a treaty of\u00a0thirteen agreed-upon articles<\/a>. Yerevan simply excluded the yet-to-be-agreed articles from the draft treaty it sent to Baku at the end of August, which has not been made public.\u00a0Dismissing<\/a>\u00a0this approach as \u201cprimitive\u201d and \u201cinadequate,\u201d Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev stated that the peace treaty would be incomplete without the remaining provisions.<\/p>\n

In July, President Aliyev\u00a0confirmed<\/a>\u00a0that 80 percent of the text of the peace treaty was ready but emphasized a precondition for Armenia to meet before signing the agreement. This condition pertains to Armenia\u2019s constitution, which references the country\u2019s Declaration of Independence\u2014a document that calls for the\u00a0unification<\/a>\u00a0of Armenia with the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n

This region, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, has been at the heart of the conflict between the two countries for the past thirty years, as Armenia sought its separation from Azerbaijan due to the presence of an Armenian community in the area. Yerevan occupied the region and surrounding districts of Azerbaijan during the First Karabakh War in the early 1990s, maintaining control until the Second Karabakh War in 2020, which ended the occupation and opened the door for peace and reconciliation between the two nations.<\/p>\n

However, this path has proven more challenging than expected. The constitutional basis for resuming the conflict and judicial manipulation conducted by revanchist forces have fostered distrust in Baku regarding Armenia\u2019s future intentions. Armenian experts and politicians fuel this distrust by publicly\u00a0discussing<\/a>\u00a0the importance of a\u00a0military build-up<\/a>\u00a0and using force to retake the lost territories.<\/p>\n

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has\u00a0acknowledged<\/a>\u00a0the need to amend Armenia\u2019s constitution for lasting peace and stability in the region. However, this process may take considerable time and is not expected to be completed\u00a0before 2027<\/a>. In the meantime, both countries have discussed the possibility of signing an interim document based on basic principles, which could be signed during COP29 in Baku.<\/p>\n

Such a document could serve as \u201ca temporary measure and form the basis of the bilateral ties and ensure neighbourly relations between the two countries,\u201d\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to the Azerbaijani president, in July. The two countries may continue negotiations toward a comprehensive peace treaty with more confidence if they succeed in signing an interim document in the upcoming months.<\/p>\n

The path to peace and reconciliation between the two countries is likely to be more complex. The territorial claim in Armenia’s constitution is not the only issue complicating the situation. Baku and Yerevan remain at odds over several critical matters, including the reopening of regional transportation links, the return of refugees to their homes, and reparations for the\u00a0destruction\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0ethnic cleansing<\/a>\u00a0carried out by Armenia in Azerbaijan\u2019s formerly occupied territories. While the latter two issues are primarily bilateral concerns, the reopening of transportation routes carries broader geopolitical significance. The interests of\u00a0Russia, Iran, and the West<\/a>\u00a0clash over the regional transportation corridors. Therefore, this issue extends beyond the relations between Baku and Yerevan.<\/p>\n

At the bilateral level, the two countries have enough problems to resolve. Above all, Azerbaijan expects Armenia to pay\u00a0reparations<\/a>\u00a0for the destruction it caused in the Karabakh region and surrounding territories. The end of the Armenian occupation in 2020 revealed the immense scale of devastation in areas that were once home to up to a million people. Everything\u2014including residential buildings, schools, hospitals, public buildings, historical sites, graves, and mosques\u2014had been reduced to\u00a0rubble\u00a0<\/a>by Armenians during and after the First Karabakh War (1988\u20131994). For instance, Gevork Kostanyan, a former prosecutor general of Armenia and Yerevan\u2019s former representative at the European Court of Human Rights,\u00a0criticized<\/a>\u00a0the government\u2019s failure in the 2020 Second Karabakh War, noting that Armenia could be forced to compensate Azerbaijan for the damage, estimated at over\u00a0$50 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Azerbaijan and Armenia also have to agree about the fate of refugees. Baku expects Yerevan to allow the return of up to\u00a0300,000 Azerbaijanis<\/a>\u00a0who were forced to leave Armenia in the late 1980s. Baku was\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0by the EU to facilitate the return of Armenians to Karabakh, the region they voluntarily left in September 2023 after Azerbaijan\u2019s anti-terror measures against the separatist Armenian military forces.<\/p>\n

The fact that Armenian civilians faced no maltreatment from the Azerbaijani side during and following the anti-terror measure was confirmed by both the Armenian government and international organizations. In September 2023, the fact-finding mission of the United Nations\u00a0confirmed<\/a>\u00a0that Armenians left Karabakh voluntarily and \u201cdid not come across any reports\u2014neither from the local population interviewed nor from the interlocutors\u2014of incidences of violence against civilians following the latest ceasefire.\u201d This fact was confirmed by the call of the Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan to the Karabakh Armenians, who tried to convince them to stay in Karabakh. \u201cOur assessment at the moment is that there is no direct threat to the civilian population of Karabakh,\u201d he\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0on September 21, 2023\u2014a day after the termination of Azerbaijan\u2019s anti-terror measures.<\/p>\n

In October 2023, the Azerbaijani government\u00a0invited<\/a>\u00a0Armenians to apply for Azerbaijani citizenship and return to Karabakh. However, this offer has yet to be accepted by the Karabakh Armenians, who demand international security guarantees\u2014a condition that conflicts with the sovereignty and constitutional framework of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, the Armenian government continues to refuse any discussion regarding the return of Azerbaijanis to Armenia, framing it as a territorial claim and a threat to the country\u2019s national security.<\/p>\n

On a positive note, in the past year, since the September 2023 events that resulted in the collapse of the separatist entity in Karabakh, the so-called \u201cArtsakh Republic,\u201d Baku and Yerevan have made significant progress in some areas. In April, the two countries\u00a0resolved<\/a>\u00a0a territorial dispute in a peaceful manner for the first time in post-Soviet history, with Armenia returning four border villages of Azerbaijan as part of the delimitation of the interstate border. They are still on the constructive path in this context. In August, the two countries\u00a0approved<\/a>\u00a0regulations for the joint work of the commissions on the delimitation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. These developments indicate enough potential to overcome the\u00a0remaining challenges<\/a>\u00a0and build lasting\u00a0peace and stability<\/a>\u00a0in the region.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/nationalinterest.org\/feature\/cop29-and-armenia-azerbaijan-relations-213370<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Azerbaijan\u00a0will host\u00a0the United Nations Framework Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP 29) from November 11 to 22, 2024. The global event is expected to attract up to 100,000 participants, including heads of state and government from over 180 countries, to Baku, the capital of the South Caucasus republic. As the country presiding over the summit, Azerbaijan…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":462,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air-center","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":463,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions\/463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}