“There should be no enclaves or exclaves on either side of the border,” he said in a video message. “In other words, the two countries must carry out an exchange of territories of precisely equal size.”

Armenian forces occupied in the early 1990s three enclaves which had been controlled by Azerbaijan in Soviet times. The Azerbaijani side seized at the time a bigger Armenian enclave, Artsvashen, as well as large swathes of agricultural land belonging to border communities in Armenia’s northern Tavush province. It occupied more Armenian territory during border clashes in 2021 and 2022.

Baku has until now denied controlling any Armenian territory while demanding the return of the Armenian-controlled enclaves. Pashinian unilaterally ceded a nearby border area to Azerbaijan in 2024, sparking massive antigovernment protests in Yerevan. The Armenian opposition has accused him in recent months of planning more such territorial concessions.

Citing his contacts with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on the sidelines of an ex-Soviet summit in Turkmenistan last week, Pashinian indicated that Baku is now open to considering the territorial swap favored by him.

“I have a preliminary impression that we have the opportunity to give peace a specific form, and we will be occupied with realizing that opportunity in the near future,” he said.

In a similar video posted on social media on Tuesday morning, Pashinian said his government will now “focus on the process of signing and ratifying the peace treaty initialed with Azerbaijan.”

Aliyev makes its signing conditional on a change of Armenia’s constitution which he says lays claim to Nagorno-Karabakh. While rejecting this precondition in public, Pashinian has pledged to enact a new constitution acceptable to Baku.

Pashinian met with senior members of his Civil Contract party late on Tuesday to discuss, according to party statement, “issues related to the draft of the new constitution.” The statement did not elaborate.

The draft has to be approved by at least two-thirds of the Armenian parliament deputies before it can be put on a referendum. Civil Contract fell short of such a majority in disputed parliamentary elections held on June 7. The two opposition groups represented in the National Assembly have vowed to scuttle the adoption of the new constitution which they say is imposed by Baku.