“The Armenian side has agreed to settling the conflict through phases and take their armed forces out of the seven regions surrounding Karabakh,” announced Azeri president Ilham Aliev in the Ramani village community of Azerbaijan on May 4.
The Armenian side has not yet refuted this announcement. Furthermore, following the mentioned announcement, foreign affairs ministry spokesman, Vladimir Karapetyan, approved it indirectly by saying the following: “It is not the first time Ilham Aliev is trying to announce the contents of the negotiations. I can only say that there was no “revelation” this time either.” Yesterday, in “Friday” club, FM Vardan Oskanyan was asked directly whether the rumors that all seven regions were going to be returned are true. Oskanyan did not refute those rumors and said, “The document contains all the principles of settling the conflict. All the issues, including issues concerning the status, security, territories, refugees, contact between Armenia and Karabakh… All components exist. I am not going to separately discuss any of them… The principle is that the relations between all items shall be in a manner acceptable by the parties.” Do they mean the seven regions? “I am not going to discuss the details,” Oskanyan said. However, after all those things, the foreign affairs minister, who recently said that before 1997 Karabakh was a party of the negotiations and Armenia was trying to return to the “initial format”, did not have enough boldness and said that Armenia’s position had “unequivocally improved” in terms of the Karabakh negotiations compared to 1997. What is that improvement? If we discuss the facts, we will not find any improvements, as during the last ten years Karabakh was forced out of the negotiation process, Armenia was qualified as “occupant” in many international documents and was accused of “ethnic separatism” on the territory of Azerbaijan, the territories surrounding Karabakh, and even Karabakh, were qualified as territories “occupied” by Armenia… It is clear that the issue of Karabakh transformed to a territorial and occupation issue from being an issue of self-determination. Plus, in consideration of the fact that Armenia was more isolated during these years, our country was set apart from large regional projects, which weakened Armenia’s positions in term of the Karabakh issue, we wonder what improvements there are that are worth “those losses”. “In 1997 the issue concerned a phased settlement, and the status issue had to be delayed; it had to be delayed some way. Today the core issue of the negotiations is the Karabakh people’s self-determination, i.e. organizing a referendum. I believe this version is better for us than that of 1997,” said Oskanyan. This means that we have “gained” a right to speak about a referendum against the mentioned losses. However, while we are discussing issues and speaking, certain work is being done, which is not good for us. In this aspect, it is not surprising that Oskanyan speaks about the fact that Azerbaijan is stepping back from the agreed principles. Maybe Aliev is going to suggest something beneficial for the Armenian side during the next meeting of the presidents, and while Armenia will be gladly thinking about that brilliant diplomatic achievement, there may be certain steps taken, which will again hinder our interests. At least, facts and actions are more important than the promises aimed at prolonging the process of negotiations. It is a fact that our country has had many losses and failures connected with the Karabakh issue (and not only with Karabakh), which are discussed above. Concerning the recent announcement of EU Secretary General Terry Davis, Oskanyan said that there were contradictions and incorrect ideas in Davis’s announcement. “I think he wanted to fix a status there by saying that at present (which they often say to others too) that is how the international community recognizes the situation. He spoke his formulation, which is not acceptable to us. It seems that he tried to introduce the situation,” said Oskanyan. To note, Davis said that “Karabakh is legally considered as occupied territory”. By saying that Davis just tried to introduce the way the international community understands the situation, Oskanyan in fact also agrees that Karabakh is accepted by the international community as “occupied territory” with all the consequences arising from it. Anyway, there is a positive development. The ambassadors of Armenia and Azerbaijan organized a visit of representatives of the intellectual communities from Azerbaijan and Armenia, who visited Stepanakert, Yerevan and Baku. The purpose of this visit is reestablishing trust between these two nations. The Armenian and Azeri intelligentsia representatives were accepted by Karabakh president Arkadi Ghukasyan, Armenian president Robert Kocharyan, and Azeri president Ilham Aliev. Oskanyan said that he appreciated that action and noted that Kocharyan and Aliev had approved that initiative of the ambassadors during their meeting in Saint Petersburg, which was realized recently. Recently Oskanyan visited Istanbul to participate in the 15th annual summit of Black Sea economic cooperation organization, where he met his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul. “I have restated our stance, which is developing relations without preconditions and opening the border as the initial step for that purpose,” Oskanyan said (isn’t the issue of opening the border a precondition?). The minister does not see any tendencies yet to develop relations between Armenia and Turkey.