A quite interesting and for the Armenian side dangerous situation is formed around the process of the NKR conflict resolution. After two years of constant negotiations around the NKR conflict, after so many meetings and consultations, after promulgating the principles acceptable it turns out that Armenia has disagreement with certain provisions of Madrid Principles. At least this is what was said by the Russian co-chair of the Minsk Group Yuri Merzlyakov after the meeting with the President of NKR Bako Sahakyan. This statement is dangerous because the revised principles are acceptable for Azerbaijan and this puts Armenia into a deadlock situation. The Armenian side received this document two months ago and so far it hasn’t said whether it agrees with it or not. The governmental camp only makes statements that the basis of negotiations is the Madrid Principles. And so two days ago Merzlyakov announces that in general the parties have agreed on the main Madrid Principles except the four of those. And here the question is if Armenia doesn’t agree with those four points then what do these define. If Armenia doesn’t agree with those what does “mainly agree on” mean? Yesterday the co-chairs were in Armenia again. They once again met with Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan and Foreign Affairs Minister Edward Nalbandyan. Yesterday the Armenian leadership was due to express its standpoint on the document. But as usual Armenia this time didn’t give any details of the negotiations. The President’s office said that during the meeting the sides have discussed a series of issues of the resolution of the NKR conflict. And the release of the Foreign Affairs ministry read, “In the course of the meeting, they discussed the recent developments in the negotiations on the settlement of Karabakh issue, the possibility of the co-chairs’ upcoming visit to the region. Co-chairs informed Nalbandyan on the results of their meeting with Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan on March 5 in Paris. Edward Nalbandyan attracted co-chairs’ attention to the continuous efforts of the Azerbaijani side aimed at the distortion of the essence and logic of negotiation process. He underlined that that activities had a negative impact on the atmosphere of negotiations and hamper their progress. Touching upon the participation of Nagorno-Karabakh in the negotiations Foreign Minister of Armenia stressed that the settlement of the issue is impossible without the direct participation of NKR authorities in the process.” Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia said that the Madrid Principles have been accepted by Armenia as a basis of negotiations back two years ago and they continue to be considered as such even now. And so it wasn’t simplified what the response of the RA government was to the revised version of Madrid Principles. And maybe the above-mentioned statement of Nalbandyan already means that the Armenian side agrees with the revised version. The co-chairs didn’t speak about this either. Merzlyakov described those changes as “proposals on the principles not agreed upon on” which he said were presented to the conflicting parties “in some new formulations.” He refused to elaborate. “We did not discuss concrete formulations,” Merzlyakov told reporters after the Yerevan talks. But during the recent days the Armenian government signifies and emphasizes the importance of the NKR status. Even for that Sargsyan made an unprecedented statement, according to which for the sake of the NKR status Armenia will be willing to return the liberated territories. And if after so many meetings there are still disagreements related to the 4 provisions of the document then most probably those relate to the NKR status. So we may assume that in the amended version the co-chairs resolved the NKR status issue in favor of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. It is not excluded that due to these last developments the NKR conflict resolution may appear in a deadlock again. A situation is formed, according to which Armenia should either agree with the document because Azerbaijan already did or just deflect from the document. The existence of 4 objections to the document is equivalent to refusing the Madrid Principles if of course Sargsyan and Nalbandyan hadn’t tried to delay this refusal during yesterday’s meeting. Let us also add that yesterday at around 5p.m. at the moment when the meeting of the co-chairs with Sargsyan information was coming from the governmental camp that after the meeting Merzlyakov was going to announce that he hadn’t said in Stepanakert that Armenia had disagreement with certain provisions of the document and that he’d say that the journalists had misinterpreted his words and that it was because of the incorrect translation. That’s what happened. About three hours later after the meeting with Nalbandyan Merzlyakov denied his statement made in the NKR. Let us also add that recently the Armenia side has been raising the issue that NKR should participate in the negotiations by all means. Surprisingly the government recalled that they are discussing the issue of the security, status of their country. During the meeting with the co-chairs Bako Sahakyan once again underlined that it would be impossible to reach final and comprehensive settlement of the conflict without the full participation of the NKR. President Sahakyan noted that unconstructive, militaristic approaches of Azerbaijan and its denial of mutual confidence-building measures are the pivotal hindrances on the way of the conflict’s settlement. The President once again underlined that independence and security of NKR are not subjects to any speculations and any attempt to bring back the past are fraught with unpredictable consequences. An impression is formed that in order to overcome the deadlock the Armenian government are bringing up the issue of the NKR participation in the negotiations to delay the obliged solution of the conflict. “Why are we suggesting that the NKR should become a negotiating side? Because there are harsh standpoints included there. Azerbaijan has roughened its position and says that it agrees to the revised version of Madrid Principles,” last week the deputy-chair of the RPA Razmik Zohrabyan sincerely told us.
