Civilnet
By Alexander Pracht
Armenia is prepared to drop the issue of Armenians returning to Karabakh, but Baku should likewise abandon its calls for Azerbaijani “return” to Armenia, as doing so would advance a normalization deal, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told reporters in Germany on Wednesday.
He argued that both sides should close these issues to avoid new conflict and focus on finalizing the agreement.
“Should we start discussing the return issue, the Karabakh question will remain,” he said. “Continuing the Karabakh question means new war, new casualties, and new suffering with unpredictable consequences.”
Pashinyan stressed that Armenia has no preconditions for signing a normalization deal, while it remains unclear whether Azerbaijan holds the same position. Addressing Baku’s demands for a change in the Armenian constitution, he said the quickest way to resolve such concerns is simply to sign the agreement. Once ratified, he noted, Armenia would be legally unable to make any territorial claims, as international treaties hold higher legal weight than domestic legislation.
Pashinyan also emphasized that constitutional changes are Armenia’s internal matter and should not concern Baku.
He also rejected Azerbaijan’s use of terms such as “Western Azerbaijan” and “Western Azerbaijanis,” saying they undermine the peace process.
“There can be no Western Azerbaijan in Armenia,” he said.
At their peak in 1979, around 160,000 Azerbaijanis lived in Soviet Armenia according to the USSR’s census. Nearly all left during the late 1980s as violence escalated around the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, while hundreds of thousands of Armenians fled Soviet Azerbaijan. Armenian communities in Azerbaijan, which numbered nearly half a million in 1970, have since shrunk to no more than a few thousand people, mostly individuals in mixed families.
In 2007, Armenian authorities reported that a small number of Azerbaijanis had still lived in Armenia but declined to disclose exact figures, citing United Nations guidelines discouraging the publication of statistical data about vulnerable groups.
In recent years, Baku has promoted a state-backed “Western Azerbaijan” narrative, referring not to Iran’s West Azerbaijan Province but to the territory of Armenia. It has supported organizations describing themselves as refugee “communities,” launched a dedicated TV channel, and promoted Azerbaijani-language names for places in Armenia.
It also often holds events dedicated to the idea of Azerbaijani “return” to the territory of today’s Armenia, a policy promoted by state-backed institutions and the so-called Western Azerbaijan Community. The latest such conference took place last weekend in Baku, titled “Cultural Heritage and the Right of Return: Restoring the Cultural Heritage of Azerbaijanis Displaced from Armenia as a Path to Justice, Reconciliation, and Peace.”
Speaking at the event, Aziz Alakbarli, chairman of the Western Azerbaijan Community and a member of parliament, said that “[Azerbaijanis] have been gradually expelled from Armenia for over 200 years, [and should have the right] to return to their homeland in a peaceful, safe, and dignified manner.”
Armenia has consistently rejected the “Western Azerbaijan” concept and has not sought the return of Armenians to Karabakh or Azerbaijan proper.
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