Azerbaijan says there are fewer open issues on draft peace deal with Armenia

By Burc Eruygur

ISTANBUL (AA) - Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said Wednesday there are fewer open issues on the draft peace deal being discussed between his country and Armenia.

“I can point out that there is a decrease in the number of items of the open issues in the draft agreement,” Bayramov said at a news conference with his visiting Hungarian counterpart, Peter Szijjarto, in Baku.

Expressing that Azerbaijan presented a redacted version of the next draft to Armenia, which was discussed during talks in the Kazakh city of Almaty last month, Bayramov said Baku received the next draft from Yerevan days ago.

“A number of items have reached the point where positive development can be observed. This is not just the re-sending of past projects. That is, we are observing a positive dynamic here,” he said.

Bayramov and his Armenian counterpart, Ararat Mirzoyan, held talks on May 10 in Almaty where the two sides agreed to continue negotiations on controversial issues.

Bayramov also touched on remarks by Mirzoyan on Tuesday, rejecting his attempts to draw parallels between Azerbaijan and Armenia’s constitutions due to the presence of territorial claims in Armenia's Constitution against neighboring countries.

Mirzoyan said during a parliamentary session that constitutional changes are not on the agenda of the negotiations, and both countries see “significant problems and obstacles in the constitution of the other.”

“There are no territorial claims against neighboring countries and Armenia in the Constitution of Azerbaijan and other legislative acts. Therefore, attempts to create parallelism in this matter are unacceptable,” said Bayramov.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​