Raising concerns about human rights abuses by the Aliyev regime in Azerbaijan has become the focal point in the conversations regarding COP29 in the country’s capital, Baku. However, these concerns have overshadowed an arguably more important development – the near finalisation of a peace deal between the two seemingly eternal regional rivals Armenia and Azerbaijan. This potential peace deal, with its power to usher in a new era of regional stability in the South Caucasus, offers a beacon of hope for a more peaceful future.

The Armenian government has recently stated that it hopes to see the normalisation of ties with the national assembly ratifying the proposed border demarcation deal. It has further expressed its certainty about Azerbaijan’s government following suit. Yet the Armenian government has expressed confusion about the postponement of reaching the milestone by its Azeri partners, especially since it hopes to finalise the deal before COP29.

Azerbaijan also tried to highlight the increasingly friendly, or rather neutral, towards Armenia. Azerbaijan has officially invited its neighbour to join the COP29 conference. Azeri officials have also argued that it is seeking peace with Armenia, not Pashinyan, indirectly blaming slow progress on him rather than the entire country. 

Aliyev has called the Armenian-proposed peace deal ‘unrealistic’, whilst, in reality, the two sides have finalised the details of 80% of the deal with some unexpected liberalisation from both sides, like the opening of sixteen rather than five border crossings between the two countries. The Azeris still require the Armenians to relinquish their constitutionally engraved claims over parts of Azerbaijan as a part of the peace deal, whilst Armenia wants the release of Armenian hostages and prisoners of war.

Moreover, Biden sent a letter to President Aliyev to push for peace negotiations to be resolved as soon as possible on the grounds of regional stability and economic prospects in a peaceful geopolitical environment. Biden also brought up lifting section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, which would reenable American state aid to be funnelled into Azerbaijan.

That being said, there is also limited potential for future regional escalation with foreign aid to both countries, especially in regards to military technology, picking up the pace. The spokesperson for the President of Azerbaijan, Elchin Amirbekov, has recently commented on this. He criticised the increase in Armenia’s cooperation with the West, namely France, the EU, and NATO, claiming that it emboldened Armenia and made it less cooperative. 

Furthermore, the recent developments exemplify the decreasing role of Russia in the post-Soviet Caucasus as other regional and global players, namely Turkey, the EU, Israel, the US and Iran, attempt to fill the power vacuum. However, it must be recognised that Armenia still has not withdrawn from the CSTO, therefore participating in an ambiguous balancing act to secure its survival, whose importance has been brought to the spotlight after the failure of the Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno Karabakh.