BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 8. The signing of the Joint Declaration between Azerbaijan and Armenia could launch the process of finalizing the peace treaty, former US Ambassador to Azerbaijan Matthew Bryza told Trend.
"For many years, I personally have believed that the involvement of the US President, whoever that is, in the Azerbaijan-Armenia peace process is really important to finalize a treaty. And I hope we're getting close to that now with President Trump today hosting President Ilham Aliyev and Prime Minister Pashinyan at the White House.
I think there's not going to be a peace treaty signed today, but instead a framework agreement that defines the specific steps that both Prime Minister Pashinyan and President Ilham Aliyev are ready to take, willing to take, to get to the point of signing a peace treaty. And nobody knows exactly when the peace treaty will be signed, but the framework agreement will be very important," the ex-ambassador said.
He reminded that in March of this year, President Aliyev and Prime Minister Pashinyan agreed on the final text of the peace treaty.
"There's one key issue remaining, and that is Azerbaijan's insistence that Armenia amend its constitution to announce and make absolutely clear that Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan and remove any ambiguity that was or is today in the Armenian constitution. And that process will be difficult. It will require a victory in a very difficult political fight by Prime Minister Pashinyan inside Armenia. And President Trump's strong support for Prime Minister Pashinyan in doing so is something that now will come out, I think, of this meeting in Washington today as very important. But it's not a peace treaty. It's a framework agreement that will help the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan finalize their peace treaty, especially by Armenia amending its constitution as Azerbaijan wishes.
There's talk also of strategic partnership agreements that will be reached between President Trump and President Aliyev on one hand, and President Trump and Prime Minister Pashinyan on the other hand, which will strengthen the economic and political relationships and security relationships between both countries," he also said.
Besides, as Bryza noted, there's talk that Section 907 will be repealed, or that President Trump will urge the Republican-controlled US Congress to eliminate Section 907 once and for all.
"And finally, it seems that there will be some sort of agreement reached on the Zangezur Corridor, or the corridor across Armenia, whereby a U.S. logistics company – not a security company, but a logistics company – will operate that corridor on Armenia's territory. These are all rumors, reports coming out of Washington now, and what happens later on today remains to be seen. But it's a very optimistic moment – the most optimistic moment in all of my years covering the Karabakh conflict over a quarter century. And so I hope that what happens today does lead eventually to that final peace treaty, hopefully in a short time. The framework agreement, if written correctly, can enable that process of finalizing the peace treaty," he concluded.