EU and US policies in South Caucasus criticized: The EU is accused of micromanaging Armenia-Azerbaijan issues while the US focuses on trade; both fail to address Armenia’s constitutional territorial claims over Karabakh, which fueled past conflicts. 

Armenia should follow Ireland’s example: A referendum to amend its constitution and drop claims to Karabakh (similar to Ireland’s Good Friday Agreement) is needed for lasting peace, despite opposition from pro-Russian forces and the Armenian Apostolic Church. 

Risks of inaction: Leaving territorial claims in Armenia’s constitution risks empowering revanchism and Russian “divide and rule” tactics, perpetuating instability and economic stagnation in the region.

As Russia is fully preoccupied in fighting a losing war in Ukraine its power and influence in Eurasia more broadly and in the South Caucasus is in terminal decline which the European Union (EU) and the Donald Trump Administration are increasingly filling. While the US is focussed on economic growth and expanding trade, the EU is micromanaging questions that are best left to Armenia and Azerbaijan to resolve.

One of these questions is central to peace in the region: the need to introduce mechanisms to prevent the re-emergence of Armenian revanchism and irredentism. After all, in the late 1980s and early 1990s nationalist claims to a greater Armenia led to the occupation of one fifth of Azerbaijan territory for nearly three decades which was not reversed by diplomatic negotiations through the amorphous OSCE Minsk Group, which was closed last year, but by two wars in 2020 and 2023.

Armenia’s claim to Karabakh rests on how its constitution incorporates the country’s 1990 Declaration of Independence that explicitly endorses the 1989 joint decision by Armenia’s Supreme Soviet and the Karabakh Armenian National Council to “reunify” Karabakh with Armenia. The constitution’s preamble references the Declaration of Independence as a foundational document which therefore indirectly embeds an Armenian claim to Karabakh.

In 1991, Karabakh held an........

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