Armenia–Azerbaijan border delimitation: four villages
First physical delimitation of the Armenia-Azerbaijan state border in April-May 2024, beginning with four villages in the Tavush/Gazakh sector. The process reduced one source of interstate ambiguity but triggered major Armenian protests over unilateral concession and security exposure.
Account
Agreement and implementation
In April 2024 Armenia and Azerbaijan announced agreement to begin border delimitation in the northern Tavush/Gazakh sector. The process involved the return to Azerbaijani control of four villages or village sites that had been outside Azerbaijani control since the early 1990s: Baghanis Ayrum, Ashagi Askipara, Kheyrimli and Gizilhajili. By late May the first border markers had been installed.
The legal basis was the same post-Soviet principle highlighted at the Prague summit: the 1991 Almaty Declaration and the administrative borders of the former Soviet republics. For the Armenian government, this was a concrete step toward transforming an undelimited and militarised frontier into an internationally defensible state border.
Domestic reaction
The decision triggered large protests in Armenia, especially in Tavush and Yerevan. Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan became the public face of the "Tavush for the Homeland" movement, accusing the government of conceding land without reciprocal guarantees, exposing villages and roads, and normalising Azerbaijani pressure after the loss of Artsakh.
The government responded that the areas in question were internationally recognised as Azerbaijani and that Armenia needed delimited borders to reduce the risk of future war. This is the central post-2020 Armenian contradiction editorial: legal clarity may improve the state's diplomatic position, but on the ground it can feel like retreat under threat when implemented after military defeats and without a comprehensive peace treaty.
Regional significance
The delimitation was the first actual marking of the Armenia-Azerbaijan interstate border since independence. That makes it historically significant even if geographically limited. It also shifted the conflict's centre from Karabakh status to Armenia's borders, transport routes and sovereignty over its own territory.
For Azerbaijan, the process validated the strategy of insisting on territorial integrity and Soviet-era borders. For Armenia, it tested whether painful concessions could buy stability. The unresolved risk is sequencing: if border delimitation advances sector by sector while detainees, right of return, heritage protection and the Zangezur Corridor demand remain unsettled, each technical step may be read domestically as one more concession extracted outside a balanced settlement.