Introduction
Following Azerbaijan’s 2023 conclusive military victory over the formally Armenian enclave of Nagorno- Karabakh, which resulted in the forcible displacement of the entire ethnic Armenian population[1], the relationship between the two nations remains fragile. As regional instability grows, the need for a sustainable solution remains urgent. In early August 2025, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a preliminary peace framework. While a potentially positive step, the skeletal agreement addresses immediate ceasefire mechanics while deferring critical questions of justice, reconciliation, and normalisation to undefined future negotiations.[2]
Within the context of these recent political developments, this article aims to examine if – and how – public willingness towards reconciliation between the two countries impacts upon the effectiveness and sustainability of the US-brokered peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Adopting the lens of public willingness to reconcile, this article argues that Armenian and Azerbaijan remain in a state of negative peace, particularly given the absence of community-level reconciliation and the persistence of mutual distrust.
This analysis draws on open-source literature and semi-structured interviews conducted by the author with one Armenian citizen, one Lebanese-Armenian representing Armenians in the diaspora, and one Azerbaijani citizen in October 2025. Participants were recruited through personal networks and informed of the anonymity of their responses given the sensitivity of the topic. Interviews were conducted in Armenian, English, and Turkish, and focused on perceptions of the peace deal, prospects for reconciliation, and trust in political leadership
Understanding the Nature of Peace
Broadly understood, peace can be categorised as either positive or negative. Positive peace refers to efforts aimed at eliminating structural violence, promoting expectations of non-violence, and building interpersonal trust, while placing certain goals like cooperation, conflict transformation, self-determination, human rights, and dialogue at the heart of peace.[3] In contrast, negative peace is defined as the absence of war and described as adversarial or conditional peace, and it primarily aims to terminate or moderate existing hostile relationships between conflicting parties.[4]
Peace does not exist in isolation; it requires governments to take concrete steps to sustain it, such as ensuring public participation in shaping peace processes, a factor notably absent in the preliminary agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Governments agreed to end the war without including affected populations in the peace processes, ignoring the prospects for reconciliation, transitional justice, and cooperative relations. This renders the recent agreement a form of ceasefire compliance—an attempt to enforce negative rather than positive peace through coexistence and mutual recognition—thereby undermining the long-term sustainability of peace efforts. In fact, focusing on short-term political gains while excluding affected populations’ perspectives, demands, and agency makes negative peace inevitable. This is particularly critical given that Armenia had limited choice and engaged in negotiations fearing serious security threats, framing peace processes as imposed, incomplete, and coerced.
baijan is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
The Effectiveness of Existing Peace and Its Implications
The recent deal has been widely praised, particularly by the Armenian and Azerbaijani governments, whose countries have suffered devastating economic, social, political, and diplomatic consequences due to the conflict. Both countries have affirmed each other’s sovereignty and made a commitment to peaceful engagement.[5]
However, the skeletal nature of the August framework, while allowing both sides to claim diplomatic victory, creates dangerous ambiguities. Critical issues were not resolved but merely deferred, postponing multiple pressure points for future escalation and weakening lasting peace prospects. Each omitted issue represents a potential crisis that could unravel the fragile framework, with several issues raising concern about the sustainability and credibility of the deal. As one Armenian citizen remarked, “I fear that we will have to plan only for the very short term”[6].
Domestically, the political leadership in Armenia and Azerbaijan are poorly positioned to negotiate and sign treaties without broad public support. On one hand, doubts about the leadership of the Armenian President Nikol Pashinyan[7] and the government’s inability to communicate transparently or effectively on security matters[8] highlight the challenges of political legitimacy and representation in global diplomacy. On the other hand, Azerbaijan’s repressive response to democratic movements in support of the besieged Armenian civilians in Karabakh in 2023,[9] coupled with the crackdown on civil society and freedom of expression,[10] have deepened public mistrust and created a top-down, authoritarian relationship between state and society.
Geopolitical factors also undermine the peace deal’s effectiveness. While the agreement largely served Trump’s political image, it diminished the agency of both Armenia and Azerbaijan. An Armenian citizen highlighted the centrality of foreign interests in the deal, saying “it is more of a surrender document than a peace treaty, while Trump only thinks about his image, the Nobel Prize.”[11] Moreover, through this deal, the US establishes a permanent presence in the South Caucasus, securing significant influence in the region.[12] This, alongside the fears of Russian and Iranian potential attempts to discredit the peace process,[13] reveals the politicisation of the deal. Such factors have deprived the deal of internal legitimacy, weakening societal acceptance in both countries.
This top-down approach in making peace, reflected in the elite-driven negotiations, exclusion of affected communities, and absence of victims’ rights and needs[14], lays a fragile ground for stability. Another Armenian citizen criticised Pashinyan for “making decisions for everyone,”[15] underscoring the exclusion of the public from determining their own political fate in favour of serving geopolitical agendas. This approach carries serious implications for future coexistence between the two countries, hindering transitional justice and reconciliation, two fundamental pillars of lasting peace and effective conflict transformation. The absence of social reconciliation risks further alienating the civilian population on both sides and leaving historical suffering unaddressed,[16] which increases the likelihood of renewed conflicts.
Reconciliation amid Hope and Fear: Viewing Peace through Public Acceptance and Willingness
The Armenian and Azerbaijani sides are willing to engage in reconciliation, but the fear of renewed conflict and the hope for greater stability are the factors impeding the efforts. Yet, it is important to acknowledge the asymmetries between both countries while discussing the communities of each nation to cooperate directly with the other side in an attempt to establish lasting peace. Azerbaijan, with significant support from regional powers, achieved military victory and performs better economically, whereas Armenia lost territory and population, with its vulnerable economy has weakened efforts to restore stability.
An Azerbaijani citizen illustrates, “it is not right to be a friend or a brother with the Armenian people after being enemies for 30 years. For us, they are neutral people.”[17] Despite reflecting negative peace, this statement offers a realistic—rather than idealistic—view of the current relationship between the two nations. Similarly, an Armenian citizen notes, “the peace deal can be seen as a cautiously positive yet deeply flawed framework. The incomplete treaty risks deepening mistrust rather than healing it,”[18] which represents the reciprocal scepticism and negative sentiment between both communities.
In a 2024 survey conducted with 1,672 people in Armenia, 56% of participants viewed Azerbaijan as the main enemy, even though 88.5% of participants were in favour of reaching a settlement with Baku.[19] While there is desire to make peace, reconciliation is challenged on many levels. As one Armenian citizen stated, “decades of war, displacement, and dehumanising narratives have left deep scars on collective memory, but they have not extinguished the human capacity for understanding and empathy.”[20] In other words, the peace deal is not neither a guarantee nor a sufficient condition for reconciliation. An Azerbaijani individual echoed this, saying “despite the deal, there is a sense of caution. People want to see real guarantees, and they do not want it to be just a promise.”[21]
Shifting away from a purely negative conception of peace, an Azerbaijani citizen emphasised the importance of progress, arguing that “for young generations like us, peace is not just a noble goal. We can move forward with the support of both peoples in education and regional cooperation.”[22] A similar point was made by an Armenian citizen, “the younger Armenian generation is open to dialogue rooted in dignity, equality, and truth. Reconciliation is not about forgetting history but about transforming it into a lesson for coexistence.”[23] This explicates how the younger generation’s fear of repeating past mistakes is pushing them to engage in reconciliation, acknowledging mutual rights and liabilities.
This said, fear and distrust still dominate relations between the two populations. A citizen from Azerbaijan stated, “for 30 years, both sides have lived with pain and insecurity. That is why it is not easy to move forward. But our generation wants something different. We want to live in a region without fear, without hostility.”[24] An Armenian citizen similarly observed, “if Azerbaijan respects all the agreements, it’s very important for us. But I’m not sure it will keep its promises and respect the points of the agreement.”[25] These views demonstrate the fragility and fear-oriented nature of the deal. The absence of solid mechanisms for transitional justice is a key factor behind the persistent hatred and distrust between the two populations, especially given its role in providing recognition to victims, enhancing the trust in state institutions, and fostering reconciliation while preventing future crimes.[26]
Conclusion
The August framework ended active hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but it left fundamental issues unresolved. It resulted in a negative peace by focusing on halting hostilities without providing any guarantees for sustainable stability or a shared vision towards cooperation. Thus, despite its significance, the partial peace agreement excludes the agency of local populations, severely undermining its effectiveness. The absence of affected populations’ interests, demands, and perceptions excluded critical factors such as the shortcomings of local governments, collapse of internal legitimacy, geopolitical interests of global powers, and the elite-oriented peace-making approaches have undermined the agreement from the outset.
Public perception is therefore key to understanding the current peace and its limitations. Although both sides express a willingness to engage in reconciliation, the incentives are mainly rooted in negative peace—fear of renewed conflicts and hope for stability. Yet, positive peace remains an ultimate goal, as both populations increasingly recognise the need for multilevel cooperation, dialogue, trust-building initiatives, and acknowledgment of mutual suffering. This calls for a fundamental shift towards a people-centred peace that respects local agency and represents the concerns and aspirations of affected populations, ensuring inclusion of the voices of under-represented and vulnerable groups.