Last Friday the U.S. President Obama, Russian President Medvedev, and French President Sarkozy at the L’Aquila Summit of the G8 made a joint statement, which reads that they affirm their commitment to support the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan as they finalize the Basic Principles for settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. They urge the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to resolve the few differences remaining between them and finalize their agreement on these Basic Principles, which will outline a comprehensive settlement. In this context, as it’s known, the revised version of Madrid principles is publicized which relate to an interim status for Nagorno-Karabakh providing guarantees for security and self-governance, a corridor linking Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh; future determination of the final legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh through a legally binding expression of will; the right of all internally displaced persons and refugees to return to their former places of residence; and international security guarantees that would include a peacekeeping operation. In the statement the presidents are instructing their mediators to present to the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan an updated version of the Madrid Document of November. It is assumed that during the meeting in Moscow on July 17 that document will be submitted to Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev. During the meeting with the U.S. deputy Secretary of State, James Steinberg the foreign affairs minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandyan welcomed the joint statement, by saying that negotiations are taking place regarding certain nuances of the statement. “It clearly says that the status of the NKR must be determined by the free will of the people of Karabakh and must be legally binding. It is important that the document mentions the importance of the corridor between the t NKR and Armenia and the issues of security are also important,” stated Nalbandyan. There was an equivocal attitude about the statement on part of political forces of Armenia and Karabakh. “The adoption of the publicized basic principles will incorrigibly harm the national interests of Armenia and the NKR,” stated the former deputy-minister of foreign affairs of the NKR Masis Mayilyan. The high-rank officials of the NKR claim that they won’t be signing any document, which would be prepared without their participation. The ARF is also against this statement and the Madrid principles in general. The ARF has unveiled its intention to seek the resignation of Armenia’s foreign minister over what it views as President Serzh Sargsyan’s failed policy in the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement process. In its final resolution, the Dashnaktsutyun-hosted conference urged Armenia not to sign the framework agreement proposed by international mediators based on principles that imply an indefinitely delayed status for Karabakh. It also called on official Yerevan to pave the way for Stepanakert’s return to the negotiations as a full party. The action will be held on the eve of President Serzh Sargsyan’s trip to Russian capital Moscow where he is due to hold another round of talks over the longstanding dispute with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliev. “Our problem is that if a leadership change implies the coming of several figures of Congress to power, then we have no guarantee that these forces will not conduct an even more conciliatory policy than the current ones,” Dashnaktsutyun’s senior member and chief foreign policy spokesman Kiro Manoyan said. At the same time, Manoyan warned that if applied, a document on the Karabakh settlement based on the updated Madrid principles would only lead to a new war. Yet, he said, Armenia still can redress the situation by changing its stance and can achieve “a fairer and more acceptable ultimate deal by engaging Karabakh in the negotiating format.” “The NKR as a party of the conflict must have a full and constructive participation and not just wait till the other parties impose some resolution so that the NKR could say yes or not,” says Manoyan and adds that Armenia must take practical steps in this direction. Let us only recall that Manoyan represents the party, which has for over ten years supported the policy of the former president of Armenia Robert Kocharyan, which was aimed at ousting the NKR from the negotiation process. A member of the NA Heritage faction Stepan Safaryan is also against this suggestion. “After what’s been done in past it doesn’t make sense to weep now that the NKR should included in the negotiation process. Here the NKR government has a lot to think about in terms of their behavior and statements,” says Safaryan. The MP assumes that the leadership of Armenia is absolutely weak and miserable when negotiating around the NKR conflict and persisting on the principles that they believe in. He reminds that the French co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group Bernard Fassier has several times stated that the NKR was ousted from the negotiation process due to the request of the Armenian president. The co-chairman also expressed an opinion that it was much easier to oust the NKR from the negotiation process than bringing it back to the process. Recently the Russian co-chair Yuri Merzlyakov stated that the participation of the NKR in the negotiation process is desirable. Thus, from the external side the co-chairmen don’t quite mind the participation of the NKR in the negotiation process. So it’s the time of the RA government to persist on that. But are the countries of the co-chairmen interested in the fast resolution of the conflict? Or to what extent the interests of these countries match in the event of this conflict? Safaryan thinks that Russia and the US are equally interested in the quick resolution of the conflict because there is a wish to receive solution from Azerbaijan. “For the implementation of the “Trans-Caspian Corridor” project Azerbaijan demands the liberated territories. Russia also has its interests here connected with gas. In both of the cases Azerbaijan said that it will agree only after the liberated territories are returned. But the interests are different in the aspect of solutions. For example, the composition of the peacekeeping forces is different for Russia and the west. But that’s OK, all the super powers have interests in every region but in this case we don’t understand the absence of the Armenian interests. Nobody should be blamed why their interests are protected. It is another issue where the legitimate interests of the NKR are, and who speaks on their behalf. The basis of this tragedy is the Kocharyan-Oskanyan duet and the Sargsyan-Nalbandyan couple agreed to be stuck in that trap,” says Safaryan.
