NATO chief urges Armenia, Azerbaijan to sign peace treaty | 5 things that could be a part of the deal

Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of the North-Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), on Tuesday urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to sign a peace agreement. “Armenia and Azerbaijan have an opportunity to achieve an enduring peace,” Stoltenberg said during a press conference in the Armenian capital of Yerevan.

Recently, the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azeri President Ilham Aliyev have said that they are now closer to signing a comprehensive peace deal than they have been ever before.

Here’s a look at what the two nations’ conflict is about, and what the peace treaty may entail.

Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

Armenia and Azerbaijan’s issue concerns a mountainous region called Nagorno-Karabakh. Until September 2023, the area was inhabited by ethnic Armenians, but recognised as a territory of Azerbaijan. Here’s what happened:

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2. Around the end of the Cold War during 1990-91, Armenia and Azerbaijan declared independence from the erstwhile Soviet Union. Nagorno-Karabakh announced its secession from Azerbaijan a year later after a contested referendum

3. That led to the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. The bloodshed lasted 2 years, claiming the lives of 20,000-30,000 people and displacing around one million more

4. The 1994 Russian-brokered ceasefire put a temporary stop to the hostilities. It also left Armenia in de facto control of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjoining regions– around one-sixth of the Azerbaijani territory

5. In September 2020, war broke out once again, this time killing 6,000 troops. During the 44-days-long combat, Azerbaijan regained control of most of the seven districts. Armenia had kept these under control for more than two decades

6. On September 19, Azerbaijan carried out a lightning offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh. More than one hundred thousand people, almost all of Nagorno-Karabakh’s population, fled to Armenia in one week. The ethnic Armenian enclave was dissolved on January 1, 2024

Since then, the focus has been on Yerevan and Baku signing a comprehensive peace treaty.

What could be a part of the Peace treaty

So far, Azerbaijan and Armenia have reportedly exchanged as many as seven draft peace agreements. Based on speeches and comments of President Aliyev, Elchin Amirbayov, the Azerbaijani president’s representative on special assignments, and European Council President Charles Michel who has been mediating EU-led negotiations, here’s a list of key points in the peace treaty:

2. Territorial sovereignty: Both Armenia and Azerbaijan are expected to focus on the mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. The peace deal may also include a mention of the square kilometres of area under each country

3. Delimitation of borders: The delimitation of the borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan has never been done before. The border demarcation issue, however, may be settled later since it is a complex problem. The delimitation may or may not happen on the basis of the Almaty Declaration of 1991

4. Communication and connectivity: For the past three decades, the two countries have been “without connection”, in the words of Amirbayov. Opening communication routes, and developing connectivity based on the principles of sovereignty and reciprocity is considered crucial for lasting peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan

5. Return of certain areas to Azerbaijan: Pashinyan recently said that Armenia may face a war with Azerbaijan if it does not compromise with Baku on returning some strategic Azerbaijani territories that Armenia has controlled since the early 1990s. Azerbaijan has said that the return of its lands is necessary for a peace deal

6. Return of refugees: The return of refugees and internally displaced people to their homes, as well as some level of demilitarisation may be part of the peace treaty

With inputs from agencies