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This article was first published on OC Media. An edited version is republished here under a content partnership agreement. 

A day after Azerbaijani pro-government media were making claims that Armenia was getting ready to start a military offensive against Azerbaijan, the two countries announced, on March 13, that they had agreed on the terms of a peace deal.

Both countries have been engaged in negotiations and countless meetings mediated by international stakeholders since the Second Karabakh War in 2020, centered around reaching a final bilateral agreement and settling their remaining disagreements. But as days unfolded, it became clear that it was too early to mark an end to a decades-long conflict between the two nations.

A step towards peace

The announcement came from both ministries of foreign affairs on March 13, with Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov informing journalists that the negotiations on the text of the peace deal had been completed. Later, Armenia’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that they had agreed to Azerbaijan’s latest proposals, and that the agreement “On the Establishment of Peace and Interstate Relations Between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan” was ready to be signed.

As Western stakeholders rushed to congratulate the two sides on a historic breakthrough, the subsequent developments signaled that the path to normalization between Armenia and Azerbaijan is as far as it was before the announcement.

The deal comes not without compromises, as was stated by the Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, who said compromises were required for any such peace agreement.

The text has not been made public, only shared to a handful of individuals. According to one unnamed Western official with knowledge of the topic who spoke to OC Media, the agreement included major concessions from Armenia, including the removal of EU monitors from the border and the dropping of lawsuits in international courts such as the International Court of Justice.

Azerbaijan has been critical of the EU monitors since their arrival at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in October 2022, accusing the monitors of “creating military and intelligence cover for the Armenian side.” The decision to deploy the mission came a month after Azerbaijan launched an offensive inside Armenia in September 2022.

In December 2022, Armenia requested another mission with the hope that its presence along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border would prevent further military escalations.

In February 2023, the EU deployed the EU civilian mission in Armenia (EUMA) with a two-year mandate. In December 2023, it announced it was increasing its presence on the ground from 138 to 209 staff. Both Russia and Azerbaijan criticized the deployment of the second mission. In their statements, both countries’ officials questioned the purpose of the mission. Speaking at a news conference in Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the purpose of the mission was dubious “in terms of its legitimacy, functions, mandate, and duration,” echoing its earlier claims that the EU monitors “can only bring geopolitical confrontation to the region,” and accused the EU of pushing back “Russia's mediation efforts at any cost.”

The new deal consists of 17 articles as per analysis and reports published since the announcement.

Azerbaijan also demands that Armenia change its constitution, removing any territorial claims to Azerbaijan, contained in the preamble. The Western official who spoke to OC Media said the latter was left out, as well as the issue of enclaves in Armenia and Azerbaijan that the other side has occupied since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Bayramov, Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister, confirmed that changes to the constitution were omitted but said that they would occur “in the next phase.”

In August 2024, Armenia announced plans to hold a referendum to approve a new constitution in 2027.  In February 2025, Pashinyan again spoke in favor of adopting a new constitution through a national referendum.

Azerbaijan’s demand for a corridor through Armenia connecting Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan, sandwiched between Armenia, Turkey, and Iran, the Zangezur corridor, also seems postponed. Azerbaijan’s earlier territorial demands over the region Armenia refers to as Syunik (which Azerbaijan refers to as Zangezur) have stoked Armenian fears that Azerbaijan is plotting an invasion of Syunik, where the route passes through.

Azerbaijani state narrative around the corridor deepened those fears. In 2021, President Aliyev said, “We are implementing the Zangazur corridor, whether Armenia likes it or not. If they do, it will be easier for us to implement; if not, we will enforce it. Just as before and during the war, I said that [Armenia] must get out of our lands, or we will expel them by force. And so it happened. The same will apply to the Zangazur corridor.”

Language of force and threats continued to dominate the state narrative. In January 2025, President Aliyev threatened to destroy “Armenian fascism.” The same day the two countries announced an agreement on the text of the peace deal, President Aliyev said he did not trust Armenia.

Azerbaijani officials also insist that the OSCE Minsk Group be dissolved. The Minsk Group, headed by co-chairs France, Russia, and the United States, was the main venue for negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan before the 2020 Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. Following Azerbaijan’s victory in that war, several competing negotiation formats emerged, with Russia and the EU vying to mediate a deal. Azerbaijan pushed for direct bilateral negotiations.

For Armenia, the dissolution of the Minsk Group rests on the normalization of relations and the signing of the final agreement. Only then, Armenia “would consider that institutionally the conflict is nearing its end, and at that moment we would be able to say that there is no need for the Minsk Group activities,” stated Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan. Similarly Mirzoyan said Yerevan will discuss “acceptable and mutually beneficial agreements” with the EU regarding the activities of the EUMA after the signing and subsequent ratification of the peace treaty with Azerbaijan.

Overall, since March 13, the Azerbaijani leadership has insisted that the signing of a peace agreement requires amending the Armenian constitution and dissolving the OSCE Minsk Group. The Armenian Foreign Ministry objected to these conditions on March 19.

Renewed military tensions

On March 20, Armenia's Prime Minister Pashinyan called on Azerbaijani President Aliyev to initiate “joint consultations” on signing the draft agreement. He offered to sign the deal himself immediately as Azerbaijan accused Armenia of violating the ceasefire between March 16 and 18. Armenia refuted the claims. Amid growing tensions, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova urged both sides “to exercise restraint and avoid any actions that could escalate the situation.” On March 21, Pashinyan said Armenia was considering appealing to the OSCE to dissolve the Minsk Group. On March 24, Armenia's Deputy Foreign Minister Paruyr Hovhannisyan said that Azerbaijan was yet to respond to Armenia's offer to sign the deal despite concessions.

The Nagorno-Karabakh area has been under the control of its ethnic Armenian population as a self-declared state since a war fought in the early 1990s,which ended with a ceasefire and Armenian military victory in 1994. In the aftermath of the first war, a new, internationally unrecognized, de facto Nagorno-Karabakh Republic was established. Seven adjacent regions were occupied by the Armenian forces. As a result of that war, “more than a million people had been forced from their homes: Azerbaijanis fled Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and the adjacent territories, while Armenians left homes in Azerbaijan,” according to the International Crisis Group.

The tensions lingered over the following decades, culminating in the second Karabakh war in 2020 and the military operation in September 2023. The latter paved the way for Azerbaijan to regain full control over Karabakh.