During Thursday’s government session, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that he intends to sign a peace agreement with Azerbaijan by 2031, which also marks the end of his current term and when the next parliamentary elections are set to take place in Armenia.
The Armenia–Azerbaijan peace process entered a new stage after the 2025 US-mediated Washington summit, which brought together Pashinyan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, and US President Donald Trump, and resulted in the initialling — but not the signing — of a peace treaty. Pashinyan has been talking about the importance of signing the peace agreement every day this week and noted during the government session that signing and ratification of a peace agreement was his ‘most important task’.
‘But I have also set myself the goal of achieving a resolution of this issue by 2031. Naturally, this is also a task for the government and the political team, but as Armenia’s prime minister, I consider it very important in terms of my personal agenda as well that we resolve this issue by 2031. I see that this possibility exists; otherwise, I would not have spoken about it, and in the near future we must be focused on this agenda’, said Pashinyan.
During the press briefing, Pashinyan was asked whether the 2031 deadline had been chosen so that he could complete it before the next elections and demonstrate results.
‘I have just been elected prime minister and have to plan my future actions. My term ends in 2031. What other dates can I give you? The term of this government and parliament is five years, isn't it? 2026 plus five equals 2031. What other number do you expect from me?’, he said.
Although Armenian-Azerbaijani talks continue at various levels and in different formats, there are still unresolved issues between the two countries that prevent a peace agreement from being signed. One of the most important of these is border delimitation, and the issue of enclaves and exclaves. Armenia and Azerbaijan have four enclave and exclave clusters that have become the subject of political controversy in the process of demarcation and delimitation between the two countries.
Karki, Barkhudarlyu, and Yukhari Askipara — Yukhari and Askipara are two separate villages that form a single cluster — are located in Armenia but are part of Azerbaijan according to the Almaty Declaration of 1991. Artsvashen, which is currently under Azerbaijani control, is considered to be part of Armenia.
On Wednesday, explaining how he imagines the peace agreement with Azerbaijan, Pashinyan said that he believes there should be ‘no enclaves or exclaves on either side of the border’ as part of the peace agreement and that the two countries should exchange territories of corresponding sizes.
Although Azerbaijan did not yet respond to Pashinyan’s recent announcements, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has previously demanded the return of Armenian exclaves that were Azerbaijani territory during the Soviet Union.
In answer to a question about the importance of the enclave and exclave issue in the signing of the peace agreement, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said on Thursday that, in contrast to the Armenian Constitution, the issue of enclaves and exclaves does not pose an obstacle to the peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijani officials, including Aliyev, have repeatedly stated that Armenia’s constitution contains territorial claims against Azerbaijan and demanded that it be changed, making it one of the biggest roadblocks to the signing of the peace treaty initialled in Washington in August 2025.
The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who is in Yerevan for the UN Leaders' Summit, urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to implement the provisions of the peace agreement during the press conference in Yerevan. He added that this naturally included the issue of detained persons. He was asked by reporters why the UN is not putting more pressure on Azerbaijan to release Armenian prisoners of war.
‘I am a strong supporter of the peace agreement. I hope all the provisions set out in it will be implemented. I regret the problems concerning the captives and the other issues. I hope all these matters will be resolved quickly’, said Guterres.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said he believes that the next meeting of foreign ministers within the ‘3+3’ regional format — Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, Turkey, and Iran — could be held in Azerbaijan, followed by a meeting in Yerevan.