Islamic countries urge Armenia to yield to Azerbaijani demands

By Alexander Pracht

Foreign ministers from the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) concluded a two-day summit in Istanbul over the weekend with a final statement praising “progress” on an Armenia-Azerbaijan normalization treaty and urging Yerevan to “overcome remaining legal and political obstacles,” including those allegedly concerning Azerbaijan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The ministers’ joint statement welcomed the completion of negotiations on a bilateral agreement dubbed the “Treaty on Peace and the Establishment of Interstate Relations,” which Baku and Yerevan announced in March. However, Azerbaijan insists that Armenia must first amend its constitution to remove any references to Nagorno-Karabakh. Such a move would require a constitutional referendum currently expected to be held no sooner than 2027, according to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

Additionally, Azerbaijan is pressing for the dissolution of the Minsk Group, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s decades-old multilateral mechanism for mediating the Karabakh issue, arguing that its continued existence implies the conflict is unresolved. 

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has also repeatedly called on Armenia to allow the return of what he describes as “Azerbaijani refugees,” who he claims were “ethnically cleansed” from Soviet Armenia decades ago. Aliyev asserts that hundreds of thousands were displaced, although the peak Azerbaijani population in Soviet Armenia was approximately 160,000 and his statements omit the displacement of ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan proper. In the late 1980s, a roughly equal number of Armenians and Azerbaijanis had to leave their homes in the respective republics as the tensions around Nagorno-Karabakh grew, inciting inter-ethnic discord.

The OIC foreign ministers’ concluding statement reaffirmed “full solidarity” with Azerbaijan’s government and people in their ongoing reconstruction of areas they say were “devastated” during the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. The document also called on Armenia to cease actions that “undermine Azerbaijan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” framing these as impediments to finalizing the treaty, without specifying what actions are being mentioned.

Armenia’s Foreign Ministry expressed disappointment with the “distorted and extremely one-sided formulations” in the declaration. The ministry said such language runs counter to the interests and logic of achieving lasting peace in the region. It also warned OIC member states that using the term “Western Azerbaijan” is a blatant claim on the sovereign territory of Armenia and may only refer to Azerbaijan’s own western districts, and that no such entity exists, nor can exist, in the Republic of Armenia.

The attitude of Armenians toward this treaty is controversial. According to a poll conducted by the Arar Foundation between May 8 and June 5, published Friday, only 30.8% of respondents believe that long-term peace with Azerbaijan can be achieved through negotiations, while 68.5% do not.

The summit and the aforementioned statement came just as Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan paid a historic working visit to Istanbul on Friday at the invitation of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. During their meeting, the two leaders reaffirmed their willingness to continue direct contacts and dialogue. They discussed the process of normalizing Armenia-Turkey relations, with Pashinyan stressing that Turkey and Armenia pose no threat to one another.

The two also exchanged views on the Armenia-Azerbaijan normalization process and emphasized the importance of constructive dialogue.