During the recent Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkey, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan gave an interview to representatives of several Turkish media outlets.

Habertürk: Could you describe the meeting with the Foreign Minister of Türkiye? 

Mirzoyan: Well, thank you for this opportunity. For me, this is, of course, first of all, an opportunity to speak to you and through you, to your colleagues, to the Turkish society, because I have the feeling that sometimes there are some perceptions in both societies which do not necessarily reflect the true, real relations and perceptions among the leaderships of the two countries. So, I think this is a very good opportunity. 

I just had a meeting with Minister Fidan. That was, of course, not the first meeting of ours. We had a very good discussion about our bilateral agenda, the steps that have been implemented bilaterally, but also the plans, and general regional issues as well, as you may assume. 

Habertürk: Can you specify, are there tangible results?

Mirzoyan: Look, if you speak about the Armenia-Türkiye bilateral agenda, several tangible steps already have been implemented, like using the airspace, like the specialists from the two countries who made an evaluation of the infrastructure on Margara-Alijan ground passage, the checkpoint on the border. Also, the two countries bilaterally, jointly made an evaluation of the infrastructure of the Gyumri-Kars railway, part of which is on the border. Several days ago, specialists from two countries met in Türkiye, specialists from different agencies, and the aim is the restoration of the Ani historic bridge, again on the border. There are several other plans.

So, things are moving, things are happening. At the same time, I cannot avoid saying that there are also some agreements which are not being implemented, like we had an agreement to open the border for third country nationals and citizens of Armenia and Türkiye who have diplomatic passports. This agreement, unfortunately, has not been implemented.

But also, we both have the understanding that the final goal, the aim, is to fully normalize relations, including establishment of diplomatic relations and opening the whole border. Moreover, today, interestingly, I and Minister Fidan and the delegations, we discussed opportunities that can bring normalization of relations. I mean, I'm saying this to show that our dialogue is not only about merely establishing diplomatic relations and formally opening the border. It's about a huge trade that can take place between the two countries. It's about, and we have discussed, some joint energy projects, transit opportunities. Moreover, we have touched upon the topic of cooperation on international fora as well, because the reality shows that sometimes when it comes to, for instance, to Middle Eastern issues, our views, our perceptions are closer than one could assume. So, there are lots of opportunities. 

CNN Türk: During today's session, you also mentioned, but I still want to ask maybe one more time, maybe you can give additional information. So, about a month ago, a significant development took place. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister, Jeyhun Bayramov, announced that peace talks with Armenia had been concluded and that both sides had agreed on a potential draft peace agreement. So, what is the current status? What is holding up the signing? Have discussions begun or are they ongoing regarding a date and location? Is it too hard to specify that? And is there any possibility that Türkiye could host the signing? Or is there a deadlock in the process? 

Mirzoyan: Of course, this is an important question, and I am not going to hide it. This is part of the Armenia-Türkiye general conversation as well. As you have noted, we have managed to agree on the text of the draft peace agreement, and it's completely ready to sign. This is quite an achievement. This is, I would say, a historic event, an unprecedented thing. Imagine Armenia and Azerbaijan after long years of conflict, after the blood that we have seen in our region, we managed, we succeeded to agree on a text.

Now, we suggested immediately to start consultations with our Azerbaijani colleagues, to start consultations to define the venue and the date of the signing ceremony. Unfortunately, we see that Azerbaijan has a little bit different perception of the issue. They think that Armenia should implement some other things to make the signing possible.

For instance, they mentioned the dissolution of the Minsk Group of OSCE. And our perception, our response, is that we are completely ready to start, to initiate the process of dissolution of the Minsk Group of OSCE. Our understanding is that if there is no conflict, and the Minsk Group is about conflict, then there is no need for this Minsk Group as well. But we should see, if I may say so, the institutionalized ending of the conflict, which is the signing and ratification of the peace treaty. So we believe and we suggested, we proposed to our Azerbaijani colleagues to sign two documents on the same day. First, the Peace Treaty, the peace agreement between our two countries, and secondly, a joint application to the respective secretariats of OSCE about our intention to initiate this process of dissolution of the Minsk Group.

Also, our Azerbaijani colleagues make continuous references to the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia. They demand an amendment in our Constitution. They say that in our Constitution, in the preambular part of it, we have a reference to our Act of Independence, which is true, in which we have a territorial claim against their territorial integrity, which is a little bit not true, because only those parts of our Act of Declaration of Independence are valid in the sense of Constitution, which are literally quoted in the Constitution. Moreover, the agreement which we are going to sign addresses the issue. So, here I need to give a little bit more details  for you to fully understand the situation.

So, in the agreement, we recognize each other's territorial integrity within the borders that existed between our countries as Soviet Socialist Republics at the time, at the moment of dissolution of the Soviet Union, and then they became internationally recognized borders. So, this fully addresses the concerns of the Azerbaijani side, otherwise they wouldn't have agreed over the text, and this fully addresses also our perception.

If we sign this treaty, during and within the process of ratification, it should go to our Constitutional Court for a conclusion, for an opinion. This is our legal procedure. So, if our Constitutional Court says that this sentence, this provision fully complies with our Constitution – I mean not having any territorial claim beyond the borders, which is acceptable for Azerbaijani side, which is internationally recognized – if the Constitutional Court says that this sentence, this provision complies with our Constitution, that means there is no issue. So, the answer, the solution is not beyond the peace agreement, but it is within, it is inside the peace agreement. And the shortest way to address the issue is to sign and ratify this peace treaty.

At the same time, and I can say that, of course, theoretically there is a possibility that the Constitutional Court will come to a negative conclusion: they say that this does not comply with the Constitution. But I have a solid basis to say that most probably they will say yes, they will give a positive opinion, because, and this is very interesting, several months ago, in September, our Constitutional Court gave an opinion on a very similar issue. We had another document signed between Armenia and Azerbaijan. This was the first ever international document signed between the two countries. This was the regulation of joint works of respective border commissions, in other words, the delimitation commissions. So, in this regulation, we, the two countries, again agreed that the basis of the delimitation should be the Alma-Ata Declaration, which says almost the same, which I just quoted: the borders are those which existed at the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. 

So, again, to ratify the document, we applied to our Constitutional Court, and our Constitutional Court said that this fully complies with our Constitution. So, I have a solid ground to suppose that in case of the peace agreement, which says the same thing, there is a good chance that our Constitutional Court will again say that this corresponds to our Constitution. So, there is no issue. 

In parallel, we see and have our own concerns regarding the Azerbaijani Constitution. And, again, I will explain. This is not just a mere mirroring of the issue. In their Constitution, they have a reference to their Act of Independence. So, in their Act of Independence, they declare that this Republic of Azerbaijan is the successor of the first Azerbaijani (Democratic) Republic, not the Soviet one. And the first Azerbaijani Republic, which existed before the Soviet Union, declared their sovereignty over much larger territories than today's Azerbaijan. It includes more than 60% of today's Armenian sovereign territories. So, we see, we have our own concerns, but why aren't we raising this issue continuously? Because we see, as I said before, in the case of our Constitution, the solution is in the peace agreement. We sign it, and we address the issue. That's it. 

So, coming back to the main issue, we are very constructive. We are very flexible. We have worked hard to have this text. Now it's ready to sign. There is no single peace agreement in the world that addresses all possible issues. If the two societies, any two societies, have the history of enmity, history of hostility, they cannot solve everything with one document. And in our peace agreement, we establish a bilateral mechanism, a bilateral commission, to oversee the implementation of the agreement, to handle all possible hardships, turbulences, which can and definitely will occur. But we established a mechanism to manage this process. So, again, the expectation that all possible questions should be answered before they can sign, I would say, is not fair and is not realistic.

See full transcript of Mirzoyan’s remarks HERE