"27 members of parliament voted in favor of the decision to include the draft statement 'On Demarcation and Delimitation Between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan', authored by the 'Armenia' faction, 51 voted against. No decision was made," Armenian Parliament Vice President Ruben Rubinyan said, presenting the results of the vote.
Artur Khachatryan, a member of the "Armenia" faction, said that according to Armenia's laws, a prime minister is given the right to form only consultative bodies, but a special commission headed by Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan cannot decide where the border runs. Any change of the border should be approved by referendum, he added.
The authors of the draft statement believe that the demarcation of the border should be based on international documents, in particular, the United Nations Charter, the Vienna Convention and the Helsinki Final Act. The demarcation should be based on the border as of September 24, 1993 - the day of Azerbaijan's accession to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), as well as unblocking of roads and communications while preserving sovereignty, Khachatryan said.
The ruling "Civil Contract" faction, which voted against submitting the draft statement for discussion at the plenary session, said it did not contribute to "the peace process declared by the Armenian government and contradicted the state interests of Armenia."
On April 19, Armenia and Azerbaijan held the eighth meeting of the commissions on border delimitation. The countries agreed on the demarcation of part of the border, which will result in the handover of four villages that had been under Armenian control since the early 1990s. Last Tuesday, the first boundary marker was placed on the border.
The developments, however, sparked protests in Armenia. Since April 20, protesters in Armenia have been blocking highways to Georgia and Iran, demanding to halt the process of delimitation and transfer of border territories to Azerbaijan.
Armenia and Azerbaijan fought several wars over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. The latest spark of hostilities in 2023 resulted in Azerbaijan taking over Nagorno-Karabakh and prompting the breakaway region's Armenian population to almost entirely flee to Armenia. Simultaneously, Baku and Yerevan started border delimitation and stated they were close to concluding a peace treaty.
Azerbaijan has demanded control over a number of formerly Soviet Azerbaijani villages remaining inside the Armenian territory after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In March, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said his government was ready to transfer the villages to Baku to prevent insecurity and avoid new hostilities.