For over a year now, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been working towards a final peace and normalization agreement, ending over 30 years of conflict between the two nations.  The United States has played a relatively muted role, hosting a few rounds of tri-lateral talks but little else.  However, Washington now seems interested in upping its involvement, reaching out to Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and promising to provide incentives for a final resolution to the long-standing conflict. 

On October 21, Senior Director for Europe at the National Security Council, Michael Carpenter, arrived in Baku.  On behalf of U.S. President Joe Biden, Carpenter delivered a letter addressed to Aliyev.  In the letter, Biden states that he is “pleased to see that your nation and Armenia have made steady progress toward finalizing a peace agreement” and underscores that the “United States stands ready to support a durable and dignified peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia that would finally put to rest centuries of conflict.”  The document also references the increased potential for trade and regional connectivity that would follow a peace agreement. 

Biden described in the letter that a resolution will “require creativity and compromise on all sides” and encouraged Aliyev to finalize an agreement by the end of the year.

Carpenter also briefed Aliyev on the steps the United States was willing to take to encourage the parties to sign a peace agreement.

In response, President Aliyev re-iterated his position that “Armenia's constitutional claims against Azerbaijan are the main obstacle to signing a peace treaty.”  Azerbaijan’s foreign minister, who spoke with Aliyev after the meeting with Carpenter, picked up on this theme, arguing that “the most serious obstacle to signing a final peace agreement is the continuation of territorial claims against Azerbaijan in a number of legal and political documents of this country, especially in the Constitution of Armenia.”

In the past, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has been responsive to the argument that Armenia should modify its constitution, which takes as its basis the 1990 Armenian declaration of independence which, in turn, lays claim to the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.  But a public referendum on the constitution, necessary to modify the document, will not be held until 2027, and new public polling demonstrates that most Armenians, 52%, oppose modifying the constitution compared to only 24% who support it.

In the meantime, recent months have seen some advances in the peace process. Azerbaijan withdrew its goal of a transit-corridor through Armenia to its exclave, Nakhchivan, in August.  Pashinyan visited his country’s border with Türkiye in July in an effort to publicize the potential benefits of Armenia normalizing relations with its neighbors.  In September, Armenia’s highest court ruled that the constitution does not provide a binding claim to Nagorno-Karabakh.  Since August, Armenian officials have stated they are ready to sign an agreement based on the principles agreed to thus far and expressed hopes in signing one before the COP 29 conference in Baku this November. 

In recent months, both Armenian and Azerbaijani officials have spoken of the peace process with optimism.  Biden’s letter to Aliyev could be read as another sign of optimism, or, alternatively, as expressing concern on the part of Washington that more encouragement is required.  Regardless, however, the letter to Aliyev demonstrates that the United States is cognizant of the peace process and believes it has the potential to re-shape the future of a long-divided region.