Recently, news programs announced that the GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova) member countries’ proposed resolution entitled “Prolonged conflicts in the GUAM region and the effects on international peace, security and development” had been included in the agenda of the UN Chief Assembly’s 61st session (the conflicts refer to the Karabakh, Abkhazia and Near Dnestr conflicts).
Although the general committee of the 61st session had decided not to include that in the agenda a day before the announcement, however the GUAM representatives had put that up for voting and it got included in the agenda with 16 for, 15 against and 65 neutral votes. The countries in favor include the three Near Baltic countries, Turkey, Great Britain and the U.S, while Armenia, Russia, Georgia, Algeria, Indonesia are among the fifteen that voted against. Representative of the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry Mikhail Kaminin explained that Russia “forbids politicizing similar issues.” As for the Georgian Foreign Affairs Ministry, it has already approved the results and has announced that the conflicts going on in the GUAM region are of a political context. According to the Georgian Foreign Affairs Ministry, despite the actions of Russia and its allies, the issue was solved through the combined efforts of the GUAM member countries and their allies, especially the U.S.
“The results of the voting proved that more and more countries of the world realize that the frozen conflicts endanger the political, social/economic development of the countries, as well as the lives of millions of people,” as stated in the Georgian Foreign Affairs Ministry statement.
It is worth mentioning that one resolution regarding the Karabakh conflict has been approved by the UN last week. It referred to the fires breaking out in areas near Karabakh with the title “The situation in Azerbaijan’s seized territories”. How is the official Yerevan reacting to this? Foreign Affairs Minister of Armenia Vartan Oskanyan had this to say:
“It seems as though based on the OSCE Minsk group document, which Azerbaijan has mainly agreed to (the referendum, autonomy right, etc.), Azerbaijan probably wants to refrain and try to draw its attention to the UN.” A couple of days ago, deputy press speaker for the Armenian Foreign Affairs Minister Vladimir Karapetyan said that although the issue had been included in the UN Chief Assembly agenda, however the rejection of the General Committee and the results of the voting show how prepared the international community is for solving such an issue.
“The GUAM organization was the one that took the initiative and one of the member countries is Azerbaijan. With this, Azerbaijan is saying that it doesn’t accept the documents set on the negotiations table of the OSCE Minsk Group regarding the discussion on the autonomy right and referendum of Karabakh,” said Karapetyan and added that Armenia won’t approve if Azerbaijan plans to prolong the conflict settlement process of the OSCE Minsk Group with the outlook of moving the issue to higher levels. Judging from Azerbaijan’s successful tries to move the Karabakh conflict to the UN and the Armenian side’s inability to counterattack, we can say that Armenian diplomats are not doing too well. The fact that the official Yerevan is “consoling” the Armenian citizens about the one vote difference and that this was morally a victory, which the authorities keep mentioning when times get rough, is rather funny because by doing that, Armenia is similar to the person who is late for the train, but consoles himself by saying that he was only two minutes late.