Yerevan /Mediamax/. President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev expressed confidence that the "legal formalities" for concluding an official peace with Armenia will be achieved in 2026.
Aliyev said this in Munich in an interview with France 24 television channel, the full text of which is provided by AZERTAC agency.
“Azerbaijan unilaterally lifted the restrictions on the transit of goods to Armenia, and we also started supplying critical oil products to Armenia, which actually marks the beginning of our trade relations. So we can see that peace has already been achieved. There are certain formalities in order to sign a final peace agreement, but along with the declaration, which you mentioned, the foreign ministers of both countries in Washington also initialed the text of the peace agreement. So for me, it is done. I think the Prime Minister of Armenia shares the same opinion. We are just learning to live in peace, and it's a very good feeling”, Aliyev said.
“I would divide normalization from a formal peace agreement because normalization is already taking place. As I said, all these positive developments show that. But the Armenian constitution, which was adopted a long time ago during the times of the occupation of Garabagh, contains the reference to the Declaration of Independence of Armenia, which contains the paragraph that so-called Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia should unite. So this is a territorial claim to Azerbaijan. Our position for many years, since the end of the Second Garabagh War, has been very clear: this should be changed. And as far as I know, Armenia is planning to hold a referendum. And as soon as it is done, there will be no obstacles to the formal signing of a peace agreement. But again, I'd like to underline that for Azerbaijan, peace has been achieved. The normalization process is moving successfully, and I hope that as soon as these legal formalities are done, we will have formal peace”, Azerbaijani President stated.
Responding to a journalist's question "This year?", Aliyev said: "Definitely".
