Azerbaijan at 'real peace' with Armenia but wants it to change constitution

Azerbaijan says it is in “real peace” with Armenia as it rebuilds trade links, but it is tying any final agreement to changes to Armenia’s constitution. Hikmet Hajjiyev, assistant to Azerbaijan’s president and head of the president’s foreign policy department, told Reuters in Shusha that direct contacts and growing bilateral trade already reflect progress, including increased Azerbaijani oil product supplies to Armenia. The core sticking point is a constitutional preamble reference to a Soviet-era document calling for reunification of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan argues provisions it views as territorial claims must be formally removed, either via a new constitution or another legal mechanism. The preliminary US-brokered peace deal reached last August followed decades of conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, where Azerbaijan took the territory in a 2023 offensive after an exodus of its roughly 100,000 residents. Hajjiyev also cited “serious and positive signals” from the United States on a planned transport corridor that could start this autumn.