Armenia–Azerbaijan Peace: What Dilijan Talks Achieved and What’s Still Unresolved

High-level envoys from Armenia and Azerbaijan sat down on June 14, 2026, in the Armenian resort town of Dilijan for yet another round of working talks. The meeting between Azerbaijan’s presidential assistant Hikmet Hajiyev and Armenia’s Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan was officially described as focused on the “peace agenda” and confidence-building between civil societies . But behind the diplomatic language, the Dilijan talks underscored a frustrating reality: a peace agreement that was drafted, negotiated, and even initialed in August 2025 remains unsigned, trapped by a handful of deep, unresolved disputes .

This gathering did not produce a sudden breakthrough. Instead, it kept a fragile thread of direct bilateral contact alive at a moment when Armenia’s domestic political calendar is tightening the window for any final deal. To understand what happened in Dilijan — and why it matters — you have to see it against the backdrop of what’s already been agreed, and what’s still fiercely contested.

What Actually Happened in Dilijan

The June 14 encounter was a working meeting, not a leaders’ summit. The two officials — Hajiyev (Azerbaijan) and Grigoryan (Armenia) — have been the designated back-channel interlocutors for much of the post-2023 negotiation cycle, and their meetings serve as a barometer for whether the process is still breathing.

According to state media and readouts from both sides, the agenda covered :

• The overall peace process and the state of bilateral negotiations.
• The importance of sustained direct dialogue for regional stability.
• Confidence-building measures between Armenian and Azerbaijani civil societies, including people-to-people contacts and the “Peace Bridge Initiative” that has held several rounds of track-two discussions .
• Practical next steps, with both sides confirming that the next meeting would be held on Azerbaijani territory.

No joint statement was issued, and no public announcement signaled progress on the hardest issues. Publicly, the meeting’s value was in preventing a total breakdown of communication rather than resolving core disputes.

The Deal That’s Signed in Principle — But Not on Paper

The peace framework that Hajiyev and Grigoryan are shepherding has a concrete, published text. The “Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and Interstate Relations between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan” was :

• Negotiated and concluded on March 13, 2025, when both foreign ministries announced that work on the draft text was finished .
• Initialed on August 8, 2025, in Washington, D.C., with U.S. President Donald Trump mediating, alongside Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev .
• Published by mutual agreement but not formally signed, meaning it carries political weight but no binding legal force.

Since that August 2025 initialing, progress has been described as “sporadic and slow” . The diplomatic energy has shifted from writing the treaty to meeting preconditions — and that’s where the real roadblocks sit.

The Key Issues Still Holding Up Signature

Analysts and official statements point to four interlocking disputes that must be resolved before either side will sign:

1. Armenia’s Constitution and Territorial Claims

Azerbaijan’s most visible precondition is that Armenia must remove what Baku describes as territorial claims embedded in its constitution, specifically references to the unification of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia . Azerbaijani officials, including Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, have been explicit: no signature without a constitutional referendum .

Armenia’s leadership acknowledges the negotiation but disputes that the constitution actually blocks a peace deal, and has not set a firm timeline for a referendum . That domestic hesitation matters enormously because Armenia’s parliamentary elections are expected around June 7, 2026, just days before the Dilijan meeting — a date that effectively limits any referendum window to a narrow post‑election period .

2. Border Demarcation: Agreement in Principle, Open in Practice

The draft treaty accepts that the former Soviet administrative borders will become recognized international boundaries. But the treaty text delegates the actual delimitation and demarcation work to a future bilateral commission whose mandate, rules of procedure, and timeline are still to be negotiated . Separating border demarcation from the peace treaty negotiation process has been an explicit Azerbaijani position since at least 2024 , which means the treaty can be signed while the physical border line is still contested — but that unresolved ambiguity remains a source of friction.

3. The Transit Corridor (Zangezur / TRIPP)

One of the treaty’s most geopolitically significant provisions grants the United States exclusive development rights for a transit route that would run through Armenian territory, often referred to as the Zangezur corridor or TRIPP (Trans-Regional Infrastructure and Prosperity Project) . But the fine print is missing. Customs procedures, fee-sharing arrangements, security jurisdiction over cargo, and the legal status of the route’s operators have not been specified in the published draft . Azerbaijan views the corridor as a sovereign right and an economic lifeline; Armenia is wary of surrendering control over a strategic slice of its territory without clear limits.

4. Third‑Party Security Personnel

The published treaty text prohibits deployment of third‑country personnel along the Armenia–Azerbaijan border . This directly affects any role for international monitors, peacekeepers, or the now‑defunct OSCE Minsk Group structures. But as with the corridor, the “modalities” for implementation are left to later negotiation, leaving a gap between a textual prohibition on paper and the real-world question of who, if anyone, will verify compliance.

Other unfinished business includes detailed procedures for handling missing persons, the working rules for a bilateral oversight commission, and the formal abolition of the Minsk Group — a demand Azerbaijan’s foreign minister reiterated when the draft was concluded in March 2025 . These are solvable technical issues, but they are tied politically to the larger disputes.

Where Dilijan Fits in the Broader Diplomatic Timeline

The Dilijan meeting is best understood as a link in a chain of working‑level contacts that stretches back to late 2025, after the text was initialed . Hajiyev and Grigoryan have become the constant face of this second‑track diplomacy, often meeting in third‑country locations or bilaterally to test whether political space for a deal is widening or shrinking.

The broader timeline shows a process that sped toward a text, then stalled at implementation:

• Early 2025: Drafting accelerates. On March 13, 2025, both foreign ministries say negotiations on the text are complete .
• August 8, 2025: The text is initialed in Washington. Leaders sign a joint declaration committing to continue work toward final signature and ratification .
• Late 2025–early 2026: Working‑level meetings between Hajiyev and Grigoryan continue, but no signature date is set. Armenia’s Central Election Commission signals June 7, 2026, as the likely parliamentary election date, increasing pressure on the referendum timeline .
• April 2026: Civil‑society representatives from both countries meet under the Peace Bridge Initiative, a parallel track to build public support for a deal .
• June 14, 2026: The Dilijan working meeting reaffirms commitment to dialogue but produces no visible resolution of the preconditions.

For outside observers, the pattern is clear: the two governments have built a functional communication channel and have a text they do not want to disown, but they cannot — or will not — close the remaining gaps unless domestic political incentives align. Armenia’s election cycle now overlaps with Azerbaijan’s insistence on constitutional change, creating a high‑stakes negotiation over timing as much as substance.

What Happens Next

The Dilijan meeting did not change the fundamentals, but it bought time. The next meeting will be on Azerbaijani soil, which itself is a small confidence‑building signal . Whether that meeting can break the deadlock depends on whether the post‑election Armenian government has both the political capital and the constitutional roadmap to call a referendum — and whether Azerbaijan is willing to accept a sequenced process that decouples the signature of the treaty from the completion of that referendum.

If they succeed, the South Caucasus could see its first formal peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan since the collapse of the Soviet Union. If they fail, the initialed agreement risks becoming a shelf document — politically meaningful but legally hollow — while the unresolved disputes over borders, transit, and security continue to risk escalation.