Armenian premier says Yerevan doesn’t need external guarantors to ensure peace with Azerbaijan

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Saturday that Yerevan does not need external guarantors to ensure peace with Azerbaijan, according to state news agency Armenpress.

Pashinyan criticized calls by “political forces” for Armenia to seek security guarantors, arguing that past reliance on such arrangements had proved unreliable.

“One of those security guarantors, in fact, made a very open and transparent statement while on an official visit to Baku—I am referring to the president of Belarus—saying that he participated in the preparatory work for the 44-day war,” Pashinyan said.

“That person was one of our security guarantors, a member of the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organisation),” he added, referring to the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

Pashinyan said Armenia could not continue “stepping on the same rake every time."

“Ultimately, we must overcome the cycle in which we allow others to use us against others and then discard us,” he said, calling it a key historical and political shift for Armenia.

Relations between the two former Soviet republics have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Karabakh—a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan—and seven adjacent regions.

Most of the territory was liberated by Azerbaijan during a 44-day war in the fall of 2020, which ended after a Russian-brokered peace agreement that opened the door to normalization and demarcation talks.

In September 2023, Azerbaijan established full sovereignty in Karabakh after separatist forces in the region surrendered.

Last August, both signed a declaration at a trilateral summit at the White House, alongside US President Donald Trump, to end decades of conflict, with commitments to cease hostilities, reopen transport routes, and normalize relations.