On November 9, 2020, the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia signed a trilateral ceasefire statement ending the Second Karabakh War. An initial draft of the agreement was mistakenly uploaded to the Kremlin’s website. According to the draft, in addition to the return of the remainder of territory under Yerevan’s control immediately surrounding Karabakh, four villages in the Gazakh region of Azerbaijan were mentioned. These villages are contiguous to Armenia’s Tavush region and have been out of Baku’s control since the early 1990s. The document stated that “the territories held by the Armenian side in the Gazakh region of the Azerbaijan Republic will be returned to the Azerbaijani side.” Although the draft statement was hastily taken down and did not hold any legal weight, it highlighted that those villages had been up for negotiation. Three and a half years later, the status of these villages is once again up for discussion between Yerevan and Baku. Some opposition figures in Armenia admit that there might have been verbal agreements between the signatories of the 2020 ceasefire document to resolve the matter, but this remains unconfirmed.

The latest round of Armenian-Azerbaijani border demarcation talks on March 7 provided insights into these new developments. Baku’s main representative, Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev, declared that the four villages in question—Baghanis Ayrim, Lower Askipara, Kheyrimli, and Gizilhajili—should be “immediately” returned to Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has made similar demands in the past, most recently in January. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was quick to respond to Mustafayev’s statement during a live press conference just days later. “There have never been villages with such names on the territory of Armenia,” he stated, at times, holding aloft a cutout map of Armenia. “We must proceed from the de jure reality. What is Armenia is Armenia, what is not Armenia is not Armenia,” he said, ostensibly confirming that Yerevan had no claim on the villages.

 

The declaration surprised many observers of the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process, mainly because attention had been focused elsewhere regarding enclaves/exclaves. During more recent negotiations, no clarification had been provided on whether four of the eight Azerbaijani villages under Armenia’s control were situated in Azerbaijan proper. Aliyev became particularly vocal on this subject earlier this year.

 

The issue of the enclaves themselves, including one formerly Armenian-inhabited village in Azerbaijan, look to be resolved during the border demarcation process. Whether the enclaves will be returned to the jurisdiction of the other or simply swapped remains unclear. One Armenian lawmaker recently noted that the matter is complicated because any exchange of enclaves will have to be determined by referendum per Article 205 of the Armenian Constitution.

 

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Pashinyan will likely be able to ride the maelstrom of discontent as negotiations to resolve the status of the four non-enclave villages continue. It is becoming clear, however, that the issue of enclaves/exclaves could prove a stubborn obstacle for any peace agreement between Yerevan and Baku. While some Azerbaijani analysts urge that ceding the four villages to Azerbaijan would maintain the fragile peace process, their Armenian counterparts argue the opposite.

The full analysis is available here.