Pashinyan Proposes "Strategic Deal" to Azerbaijan

"I believe that, in general, we have now come to a point and the agenda has matured that can in some sense be called a strategic deal between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan." Nikol Pashinyan stated this at the Orbeli Forum 2025, titled "Building Peace and Multilateral Cooperation." "What is and what could be that strategic deal? The essence of the deal is as follows: Armenia and Azerbaijan recognize each other's territorial integrity based on the Alma-Ata Declaration, meaning, as I said, they open regional communications based on the already declared Washington Declaration, carry out delimitation based on the already agreed-upon regulations, and leave each other alone. A very simple thing. They leave each other alone.

There is nothing else to do. Moreover, I want to state that this vision is also recorded in the initialed peace agreement, the first article of which says, I quote: 'Confirming that the borders between the former Soviet Socialist Republics of the USSR have become the international borders of the respective independent states and as such are recognized by the international community, the parties recognize and will respect each other's sovereignty, territorial integrity, the inviolability of international borders, and political independence.' So, what does this text say?

It says that the Soviet republics have become states, and accordingly, on this basis, we respect each other's territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders. Next, fully in line with Article One, the parties confirm that they have no territorial claims against each other and will not make such claims in the future. The parties will not undertake any action, including the planning, preparation, encouragement, and support of such actions, aimed at wholly or partially dismembering or undermining the territorial integrity or political unity of the other party. I want to emphasize that the preamble of the peace agreement also refers to the Alma-Ata Declaration. I mean, the architecture of peace is fully constructed at the political level.

I will not quote other articles now, but the Washington Declaration, the initialed text of the peace agreement, the joint regulations signed between the delimitation commissions of the two countries have completely drawn that architecture. That is, at the political level, we have no problems here. We have problems here at the socio-psychological level. And it is even difficult to talk about the problems that exist at the socio-psychological level. It is difficult to talk even about political leaders. But I think that we should also talk about it.

For example, I have drawn such, such a statistic, which, of course, still needs to be re-verified at the expert level, but at least at the political level, my impressions are becoming more and more substantiated. Moreover, I cannot and will not say where the starting point of this cycle is: in Armenia or in Azerbaijan. Specifically, I have seen such an internal connection, an internal connection, that, for example, the more the name 'Basargechar' is mentioned in Azerbaijan, the more the name 'Artsakh' is mentioned in Armenia, or, or, or, or, or the name Kovsakan," noted the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia.