He described the initialing of the peace agreement with Azerbaijan as the beginning of a “new era” in Armenia’s life. By doing so, Yerevan officially marked its renunciation of long-standing territorial claims against Azerbaijan and acknowledged the inevitability of closing the Karabakh issue — without which, Pashinyan said, peace would be impossible.
He placed particular emphasis on the notion that peace is a “foreign feeling” for Armenian society, as the country had lived in a state of permanent war and perception of military threats since independence — a condition, according to him, deliberately imposed by “certain forces” as a tool to prevent Armenia from achieving independence, sovereignty, statehood, and development. Now, the prime minister noted, society must learn to live under new conditions where security is ensured not by military confrontation but by an institutionalized peace agreement. This rhetoric reflects an attempt by the authorities to shift the traditional perception of political reality, in which the Karabakh conflict was the central element of national policy.
A separate part of the speech addressed the fate of Karabakh Armenians who left the region. Pashinyan for the first time stated clearly that their return to their former places of residence in Azerbaijan’s Karabakh economic region is unrealistic and even dangerous. He argued that any bilateral negotiations on this matter would not benefit the displaced people themselves but would instead become a new source of tension between the states. In this way, the prime minister officially removed from the agenda an issue that had recently been central to Yerevan’s foreign policy, shifting responsibility for the fate of these people into the sphere of domestic policy — integration and social support within Armenia.
Equally important, this decision reflects pragmatic calculation. Pashinyan fears that raising the issue of Karabakh Armenians’ return would inevitably trigger reciprocal demands from Azerbaijan — particularly the repatriation of several hundred thousand Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia between 1987 and 1991. Thus, by rejecting the very idea of bilateral negotiations on refugee return, he seeks both to block revanchist illusions and to prevent symmetrical demands from Baku. However, Azerbaijan has never linked the return of Azerbaijanis to their ancestral homes with the peace process. For Baku, this is a separate issue, tied to the restoration of historical justice.
Pashinyan also explained that the issue of so-called “Armenian prisoners” was not included in the peace treaty precisely to avoid postponing their release until the signing and ratification of the agreement. According to him, diplomatic work in this direction is actively continuing. Yet here, the Armenian prime minister overlooked an important fact: official Baku has no intention of discussing this issue with Armenia or anyone else. The matter concerns criminals currently on trial in open court, who must face justice for years of atrocities and lawlessness committed on occupied territories.
Particular attention was drawn to the announcement of a joint Armenian-Azerbaijani initiative to nominate U.S. President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. This step symbolically cements Washington’s strategic role in shaping the new regional order and simultaneously highlights Yerevan’s departure from its long-standing dependence on Moscow in security matters. Armenia thus confirms that it sees its future in the Western direction and in integration into new transport and energy routes opened by the signing of the Washington agreements.
Concluding his address, Pashinyan declared that Armenia is emerging from more than three decades of blockade and international isolation. Politically, this signifies not only a breakthrough in regional connectivity but also an attempt to legitimize his government’s course in the eyes of a domestic audience for whom the prospect of a “life without war” had until recently seemed unimaginable.
In sum, Pashinyan’s address sets forth a new political narrative in which Armenia ceases to be a “country of conflict” and seeks to position itself as a state capable of building normal relations with its neighbors and integrating into regional processes. Yet despite the outwardly positive rhetoric, to implement this course his government must overcome resistance from segments of society disillusioned by Armenia’s defeat in the Second Karabakh War and harboring open revanchist sentiments — above all, the internal and external political forces standing behind them. This is a far more difficult task than making bold public declarations.
Ilgar Velizade
