But hurdles remain. Azerbaijan also said Armenia’s constitution must “eliminate the claims against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan,” as a prerequisite to allow for the signing of the peace treaty.

The two South Caucasus nations, former Soviet states, have fought multiple wars since the 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnically Armenian region broke away from Azerbaijan.

Armenian and Azerbaijani officials said on Thursday that they had agreed the text of a peace agreement to end nearly four decades of conflict between the South Caucasus countries, a sudden breakthrough in a fitful and often bitter peace process.