Share :

Download PDF :

AVİM's Note: Click here to read our most recent analysis, which is in line with the commentary below.

The National Interest (18 June 2026)

Joseph Epstein

To prevent a future flare-up of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the people of Armenia must end it once and for all—renouncing the disputed territory through a constitutional change.

In a setback for Russia and a positive sign for America and the West, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan won a major victory in his country’s parliamentary elections on June 7. Civil Contract, Pashinyan’s political party, defied an all-out Russian influence effort and propaganda blitz, winning 64 out of the parliament’s 105 seats—an outright majority, allowing it to govern Armenia alone. But the act that will actually determine whether Armenia’s peace with Azerbaijan holds is not the election just behind him, but the constitutional change still ahead. Until Armenia removes the language in its 1995 post-Soviet constitution that lays implicit claim to the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, the deal initiated at the White House last August will remain a mere document, not a settlement. History offers a sharp warning about the difference. 

The clause in question sits in the preamble of Armenia’s constitution, which invokes the 1990 Declaration of Independence and, through it, the 1989 act of “reunification” with Nagorno-Karabakh. That language amounts to a standing claim on territory that every UN member state, now including Armenia itself, recognizes as Azerbaijani, and over which Baku reestablished full control in 2023.

Click for more.