“Even if a peace treaty is signed…” — Who will erase the image of the enemy from people’s minds?

Three years ago — on September 19, 2023 — Azerbaijan launched a counter-terrorism operation against the Armenian armed formations in Karabakh. The operation lasted 23 hours and 43 minutes and ended on September 20 with the declaration of a ceasefire and the capitulation of the separatist forces. It was precisely on that day that the decades-long armed conflict was brought to an end.

Today, three years after those events, the significance of what happened can no longer be viewed solely through the prism of military history.

September 19, 2023, was not merely the day the war ended; it also marked the beginning of an entirely new political period in the South Caucasus. After Azerbaijan restored full control over its internationally recognized territory, the principal subject matter of the previous conflict ceased to exist. The reality upon which a vast political, diplomatic, and informational structure had been built for decades disappeared. The objective need for structures established specifically to resolve this conflict also disappeared. The most obvious example is the OSCE Minsk Group. Following the joint appeal by Armenia and Azerbaijan dated September 1, 2025, the OSCE adopted a decision to close the Minsk Process and its related structures, and the process of their closure was completed on November 30, 2025.

At first glance, everything appears simple. If the previous conflict no longer exists, there is no longer a need for the mechanism that was created to resolve it. Yet this is precisely where the most interesting issue begins. It is possible to end a war through military operations, alter the political reality, close an international structure, and sign a peace treaty. But there is something that cannot be changed by a government decision or by a signature placed beneath an international document. That is the human mind.

For this very reason, I am convinced that the principal challenge in the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process today is no longer confined to diplomacy, borders, communications, or legal formulations.

The problem lies deeper: in ideology, historical memory, and the image of the neighbor that has been shaped in society’s consciousness over decades; and, frankly speaking, this is precisely where Koshchei’s needle is located. To get rid of the old conflict once and for all, that needle must be destroyed.

Let us recall how rapidly political rhetoric can change when the political reality changes.

In August 2019, speaking in Khankendi, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan declared: “Karabakh is Armenia, period.” This was not a statement merely repeated by one of his opponents — it is the officially published text of a speech delivered by the Prime Minister of Armenia himself.

Several years passed.

Following the events of 2023, the Armenian leadership began to base its position on the recognition of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, and as early as February 2024, Pashinyan explicitly stated that Armenia and Azerbaijan recognize each other’s territorial integrity on the basis of the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration. In 2025, he stated that the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and inviolability of the internationally recognized borders of both countries were mutually recognized. The political reality changed, and political rhetoric changed with it. Yet the fundamental question arises here: is this enough, and is it possible for society’s consciousness to change as rapidly as the foreign policy course?

I would not rush to answer this question. Political conjuncture is one thing; strategic rethinking is an entirely different matter.

A politician can make a political turn, a state can change its foreign policy course, and a government can accept a reality that it categorically denied only yesterday.

But society does not change by decree. Particularly not a society that has experienced two wars, lost thousands of people, lived for decades in an environment of mutual hostility, and embraced a thoroughly defined representation of both its own history and the image of the neighboring people.

That is precisely why I am convinced that crises of this kind will continue to emerge many more times in the process of normalizing Armenia-Azerbaijan relations.

There was one crisis yesterday, another exists today, and a third may emerge tomorrow, and this does not necessarily mean that the peace process has come to a halt. On the contrary, it indicates that the process has entered a more complex stage.

As long as the issue consisted of territory, borders, communications, international structures, and political statements, the dispute was primarily taking place between states.

Now, however, the discussion is gradually shifting toward societies, and this is more complicated. Territory can be liberated, borders can be demarcated, an international structure can be closed, and a document can be signed. But how can one erase from the human mind the image of the neighbor as an eternal enemy?

That is the central question.

The latest developments surrounding visits by foreign diplomats to Karabakh and Eastern Zangezur demonstrated how painfully the new reality in Azerbaijan itself is being perceived in certain Armenian circles. I wrote about this in detail in my article entitled “The Litmus Test of Peace,” and I do not wish to repeat the arguments presented in that article.

However, the current crisis is interesting from another perspective. It demonstrates that as the peace agenda advances, we are approaching the red line where diplomatic conjuncture ends and ideology begins.

And it is precisely here that Koshchei’s needle emerges. The issue of Armenia’s Constitution is only one of its elements.

Azerbaijan considers it necessary to eliminate any provision in Armenia’s constitutional system that could be interpreted as constituting a territorial claim. The Armenian side, for its part, states that the Constitution of Armenia contains no direct or indirect reference to Karabakh and draws attention to the nature of the reference to the Declaration of Independence in the preamble.

Yet if we set aside the legal dispute, there is one undeniable fact: Armenia’s 1990 Declaration of Independence directly refers to the joint decision adopted on December 1, 1989, concerning the “unification” of the Armenian SSR and the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. The preamble to Armenia’s Constitution, meanwhile, proclaims the national aspirations enshrined in the Declaration of Independence as the foundation of statehood.

Therefore, this is not merely a legal dispute.

Even if all the necessary changes are made tomorrow and a peace treaty is signed, this will not automatically mean the disappearance of the ideological environment that has shaped Armenian society’s attitude toward Azerbaijan and Türkiye for decades. And here we arrive at the most painful issue — historical memory, school textbooks, public symbols, monuments, heroes, and the question of whose memory the state and society consider worthy of preserving.

After all, a monument is not simply bronze or stone. It is a message that the state and society convey to future generations, and it answers one question: whom do we propose that young people regard as heroes?

This is precisely why the issue surrounding the monument to Garegin Nzhdeh, who was sentenced to life imprisonment as an accomplice of the Third Reich, carries significance far beyond the boundaries of a single monument.

In 2016, a monument dedicated to Nzhdeh was unveiled in the center of Yerevan. Armenia’s then-President Serzh Sargsyan also attended the ceremony and laid flowers at the monument. The official municipal resource of Yerevan still refers to Nzhdeh as a national ideologue and openly states that the monument not only preserves his memory but also “transmits his ideas to generations” and cultivates the national spirit.

Here, however, an unavoidable question arises. How can peace be established with a neighboring people while, at the same time, public symbols of the past associated with an ideology of national exclusivity and confrontation toward neighbors are preserved in the center of the capital?

This is not a question addressed solely to the government of today; it is also a question addressed to society. Because the peace process requires not only new political statements but also a new attitude toward the past.

I deliberately do not want to turn this article into yet another biographical debate about Nzhdeh. There are historians and specialists for that purpose. Yet one cannot ignore the fact that his activities and ideological legacy remain the subject of serious controversy throughout the world, including with regard to his relations with Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

More importantly, modern Armenia continues to openly commemorate him as a national ideologue. This is no longer merely history; it is the present and, consequently, also the future.

However, Garegin Nzhdeh is only one symbol of a broader problem. Yerevan also has other monuments, memorials, and sites of remembrance associated with individuals who carried out acts of terrorism against representatives of Azerbaijan and Türkiye, and here the same question arises once again: what are we transmitting to the next generation? History, or a cult of the past? Memory, or hatred? National pride, or national exclusivity?

These are fundamentally different things. Every people has the right to remember its history, honor its dead, and preserve its national identity. Yet none of these rights requires turning a neighboring people into an eternal enemy, and it is precisely here that the boundary between healthy historical memory and an ideology of conflict lies.

A person can remember their own tragedies without turning them into a license for future generations to hate the children of another people. A person can honor their heroes without turning the enemy into an eternal historical category. And one can love one’s own country without cultivating hatred toward another country.

However, if Armenia genuinely wishes to move from a “post-war” condition toward sustainable peace, sooner or later it will have to answer precisely these questions. Not to Azerbaijan, not to Türkiye, not to the West, not to Russia, but to itself. Because the political history of recent years has already demonstrated one simple truth: reality is stronger than political myths.

For many years, a political construct existed around Karabakh, and it collapsed. For many years, an international construct existed around the Minsk Group, and that too passed into history. In September 2025, the OSCE officially closed the Minsk Process on the basis of a joint appeal by Armenia and Azerbaijan. Yet ideological constructs do not disappear together with international organizations, and therefore simply saying “Karabakh is Azerbaijan” is not enough today.

At some point, these words must become not merely a political formula of the government, but also part of a new reality accepted by society, and this is more difficult. Acting in accordance with political conjuncture is one thing; strategically rethinking the causes that brought Armenia-Azerbaijan relations to their present state is an entirely different matter.

A person may recognize Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity because a changed balance of power requires it, or because they have genuinely understood that the previous policy had reached a dead end. A person may sign a peace treaty because there is no other way forward, or may sign it as the beginning of a new historical era, and there is a profound difference between these two approaches. That is precisely why I do not believe that today’s peace process should be measured solely by the number of documents signed. Because there is a more important indicator. Are societies’ attitudes toward one another changing? Is the image of the eternal enemy disappearing? Is the language of school textbooks changing? Is the attitude toward symbols of the past changing? And is the glorification of violence coming to an end?

Are Azerbaijani and Armenian children beginning to perceive one another not as extensions of their grandparents’ war, but as neighbors who must live side by side?

Only then will it be possible to speak of a genuine transformation. Until then, we will be dealing only with political normalization. And that is not yet historical reconciliation. This is precisely the main paradox of the current moment. Azerbaijan won the war, and now a more complex task lies before the entire South Caucasus — to win the peace. This requires more than a strong army, diplomacy, and international agreements. It requires a new political culture and a new historical culture, as well as the ability to distinguish memory from revenge, patriotism from hatred, and national identity from national exclusivity. Because peace between states may begin with the signatures of presidents, but peace between peoples begins somewhere entirely different: in the human mind. That is precisely why I would not regard the next crisis as proof that the peace process has failed. On the contrary, every such crisis reveals where the old mines are buried, and the current crisis has exposed one of the deepest of them. We have approached the ideological component of the conflict, that “Koshchei’s needle,” and if political leaders genuinely do not want the new chapter of history to become merely a temporary interval between two wars, sooner or later they will have to find that needle.

Because it is possible to destroy the separatist project, close the Minsk Group, sign a peace treaty, and open borders and transportation communications. But if the historical image of the neighboring people as an enemy continues to live in the consciousness of the new generation, the conflict is merely changing its form. True peace, therefore, begins where the transmission of hatred from one generation to the next comes to an end. War ends on the battlefield; peace begins in people’s minds. And here I would like to conclude with the words of Albert Einstein: “Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.” Yet understanding does not mean forgetting one’s history; it means being able to look at it without hatred. And perhaps this is precisely what both Azerbaijan and Armenia must learn today.

Ramis Yunus

Professor of Political Science at Khazar University