It would be wrong to say that the Karabagh conflict negotiations in Bucharest weren’t effective; negative results are considered to be results too. These negotiations proved that the West continues to pressure Armenia; as for the Armenian authorities, they are not retreating yet. The announcement of the deputy secretary of the US Department of State was the best proof of this assumption. He said that they wanted Armenia to give as many territories back to Azerbaijan as possible and quickly. I am sure that Azerbaijan wants the same too. Some people may disagree and say that “the co-chairmen want to organize an independence referendum in Karabagh in 10-15 years and that the results should be approved by all sides, including Azerbaijan”. Don’t believe them. The co-chairmen know very well that before the war, 76% of Karabagh’s population was Armenian, and if Azerbaijan returns the same refugees that escaped from that territory back to Azerbaijan, the percentage will not differ much. They also know very well what kind of outcome the referendum will have if organized fairly. So why do they want to postpone the referendum for 10-15 years? Are they doing this with the purpose of giving an opportunity to Azerbaijan to make false lists of refugees and bring more people from their country to that territory than the actual number of refugees? If Armenia tries to prevent them from doing this, they will declare a new war. If that happens, Armenia will be much weaker than it currently is because we will have returned five regions to them already. In other words, the Armenian authorities are doing the right thing by not taking any steps back under the pressure of great foreign powers. If we can’t avoid a new war, it will be better for us to start that war now than later, after giving them five regions. And if there are people that believe in the promises made by the co-chairmen and Azerbaijan, we don’t have anything to say concerning that. The only thing I can remind is that British ships can’t climb mountains, Russians make trade with Turks in difficult situations for us, as for Azerbaijan, their main strategy during the last century was making as many Armenians leave Karabagh as possible (in fact, they don’t deny this).
On the other hand, to reject the proposals of the co-chairmen still doesn’t mean to be a hero and say that we can survive and developed for more than a hundred years in blockade and continue working like nothing has happened. From this perspective, we are lucky that Azerbaijan has oil: due to this fact, other countries will never let them be a democratic state. In our region, oil and democracy don’t go hand-in-hand. For instance, Iraq, Iran, UAE, etc… Due to this, we get an opportunity to balance democracy with oil.
If there is anyone who doesn’t like democracy (there is an opinion saying that democracy is a way to close the eyes of people), he/she can interpret this point in another way. Armenian society should agree with the main rules of the games that are generally played in the international arena. This means that we (both governmental and oppositional representatives) should confess and agree that we should all follow certain rules of the game and not violate them because it is not in our interests. These rules can be called as democracy, “rules of the criminal world” or anything else, but everyone must follow the rules. You can see the same thing in fights without rules: there are no rules, but this principle is accepted by everyone.
As for Armenia, there is no such case. For instance, everyone knows that problems are solved in courts with bribes. However, judges are not responsible for taking any bribes. They can take it or refuse, it is up to them. Things will be different if the law provides that “judges should solve problems in favor of the one that gives more money than the other”. In that case, the situation would be much better and fair. For instance, we could all agree that conflicts concerning real estate property are solved through fights and shooting, and the winner is the one that manages to stay alive. This would be better than the current reality when these kinds of problems are sometimes solved through shootings and often based on the law. As for which method to choose, it depends on which one is better for the authorities when applied.
There is no irony in the abovementioned. It will simply be better for Armenians to have rules for the game and make everyone agree with those rules. The rules don’t matter. The most important thing is not to let anyone violate those rules.