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The RA NA delegation takes part in the works of the Third Part of the Annual Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) going on in Strasbourg .

In her speech the Member of the RA NA delegation Arusyak Julhakyan said:

“Dear colleagues,

While discussing the progress report of the Assembly let me take the opportunity to tell you about the recent developments in the normalization process between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

On April 19 this year the commissions of Armenia and Azerbaijan working on the delimitation of the state border between two countries reached an important agreement. The parties agreed that the border delimitation process will be based on the Alma Ata declaration of 1991. Based on this agreement the parties agreed on the separate sections of the borderline in the northern part of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in order to bring them into compliance with the legally justified inter-republican border that existed within the Soviet Union at the moment of its dissolution. Since then more than 12 kilometers of the borderline have been delimited and the border services of both countries were deployed along the agreed sections of the borderline.

This was indeed a positive and stabilizing step towards the normalization process. However, 10 days later the Foreign Affairs Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan met in the symbolic city of Alma Ata for peace agreement negotiations but no substantial progress was achieved there as Azerbaijan is reluctant to reflect the already achieved agreements in the treaty. Furthermore, Azerbaijan came up with new preconditions declaring that they will be ready to sign the peace treaty only after Armenia amends its constitution as they argue that there are territorial claims in its provisions, which is not true.

Armenia recognizes the territorial integrity and inviolability of the borders of all its neighbours. Armenia is loyal to this principle and does not have any ambitions beyond its internationally recognized 29 thousand 743 square kilometers.

The Constitution of Armenia and the amendments to it are internal affairs of Armenia, and we consider the attempts by official Baku to intervene in the internal discussions in Armenia as a gross intervention into the internal affairs of the country.

Such rhetoric torpedoes the peace process and casts doubts on the sincerity of the leadership of Azerbaijan to achieve peace.

In addition to the above mentioned recently Azerbaijan started to periodically disseminate information that Armenia is violating the ceasefire regime. Azerbaijan does so every time it is going to initiate another escalation.

On June 15 the Prime Minister of Armenia declared that it is the will of the Government of the Republic of Armenia not to allow tension and proposed Azerbaijan to create a bilateral mechanism for investigation of cases of violations of the ceasefire regime. No answer has been received from Azerbaijan so far.

Dear colleagues, Azerbaijan's practice of predicting regional escalations at every opportunity is alarming and comes to prove the analyses made by a number of think tanks that Azerbaijan will do everything to disrupt the process of concluding a peace agreement with Armenia in order to launch a new aggression against Armenia after the COP29 to be held in Baku in November this year.

I draw your attention and the one of the international community to this, as well as to the fact that official Yerevan’s proposal to conclude a peace agreement within 1 month remained without response by official Baku.

Thank you.”