During yesterday’s discussion on the budget provisions for the foreign policy in 2011 in the parliament the foreign minister Edward Nalbandyan spoke about the issue of Karabakh conflict settlement too.
He spoke about that issue pretty long, which had nothing to do with the topic of the budget discussions. The head of the commission on finance and budget issues Gagik Minasyan who hosted the discussion on the budget provisions in 2011 knew about this too. He also knew the principles in the basement of the conflict settlement such as the right for self-determination of nations, territorial integrity and non-application of force. But he did not understand well the six points in the basement of the Karabakh conflict settlement. These are the six principles brought up during the G8 summit by Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and Dmitri Medvedev. It seemed that Edward Nalbandyan was waiting for that question and he responded to them with great pleasure. “First, the final status of Karabakh shall be decided by the people of Karabakh by expressing their will, which shall have an international legal force,” said Mr. Nalbandyan.
Last year when these principles were published a big noise rose up concerning the formulation of “expression of will”. Many experts and politicians believe this term is very general and cloudy, and they believe this term was written in the documents to be able to maneuver in the future. Till now there has been no precise explanation what this term of “expression of will” means. “Do you think Armenia may agree with that? Of course. It is a good principle, the right principle. It says that the right for self-determination must not only bee recognized, respected but fulfilled too,” said Edward Nalbandyan.
Maybe because of lack of language knowledge or experience Edward Nalbandyan failed to get the idea correctly and understand what it means. We will cite the words of the foreign minister not to be blamed of changing anything in the meaning. According to him, till organizing this self-expression Karabakh will have an intermediary status. “It is what Karabakh has now. It must have a status, if this status no one is recognizing now, it is suggested as a provision, then it must be recognized, not as a state, but till the self-expression takes place, through which the people of Karabakh will decide its status. Third, there must be a permanent land connection between Karabakh and Armenia. Do we agree with the second one? I don’t see any reasons to disagree. Do we have anything against the third one, are we against it? I don’t think so. Fourth, there must be international guarantees of peace, including the allocation of peacekeepers around Karabakh. Fifth, all refugees and people who have been removed from their places of living must get a right to return back. Of course it will take place when the security guarantees are provided and these issues are solved. Sixth, the territories should be returned. What is Azerbaijan saying? Azerbaijan says they will be ready to speak of the other things when the territories are returned. Our position is that we agree to accept this as a basement for negotiations. ” But it does not mean that everything has been agreed and we have agreed with all these issues. This is the basement of the Madrid document presented in November 2007, during which Armenia also said that it can be accepted as a basement for negotiations. Azerbaijan had been refusing for a quite long time. We reached a point when in June, in St. Petersburg, a new draft was presented, which had been processed based on the document of Madrid, where we said that we could accept it as a basement for negotiations. The Azeris accepted that document and shortly changed their mind,” explained Edward Nalbandyan.
According to the foreign minister, starting from November 2007 till June 2010 about 30 documents will be presented by the intermediate countries and organizations. The Azeris from time to time said that they agreed with one of those versions, but with some exceptions. “It means that you don’t agree with that. It means that you agree with that and you express your opinion based on it. But if you say that you have exceptions and those exceptions are more than those provisions you agree with, it means that you don’t want to negotiate. This is the real situation we have today. The co-chairmen countries’ foreign ministers said no in Almaty, as these three principles and elements are made as a complex. And it is impermissible to separate one from another or give preference to either of them. This is a serious evolution in the process of Karabakh conflict settlement. There was time when everybody was speaking of territorial integrity only, later they spoke of three principles, but sometimes they were making hints that the most important one is the territorial integrity. Now they openly say that neither of the principles can be more privileged than the others. This is evolution,” said Edward Nalbandyan.
It is worth mentioning that the foreign minister did not present the principles in the order as it was done by the three presidents. In that version the return of territories was in the first place. Mr. Nalbandyan took that point in the sixth place, i.e. the last place. In the first place he spoke about the issue of Karabakh’s status, which was in the fourth place in the announced version. We don’t know what the sequence can change and what importance it has. Nalbandyan says these six points should be agreed in a package, only after which it will be possible to implement them. We also tried to get more information about these six points of the conflict settlement principles from Nalbandyan.
– Mr. Nalbandyan, in the president’s announcement the return of the territories surrounding Karabakh was in the first place. You presented it in the last place and said a package agreement should be reached on it. Which of these points will be the first one to be implemented after reaching an agreement? Will it be the return of the territories?
– No. If there are two elements, six or sixteen elements, and it is said that there should be a package agreement on them, it means that all should be agreed upon. Later, when all these things are agreed upon, I mean all together but not either of them, the parties start the implementation. If everything is agreed upon, the other things are about technical issues such as the timing. The points in the presidents’ announcement are the main things in the principles of Madrid, but these are not all the provisions there.
– What points did you agree upon during those years?
– If there was a need to publish, believe that we would not wait for your question and we would publish it to make it public what we have agreed upon and what we don’t like. If we reach that point, have that agreement and want to publish it… and this is a process, and the parties of the Karabakh conflict settlement are still involved in it. There must be agreement between the parties.
– Does your answer mean that there is no agreement over any of the principles?
– You are asking the same question from different sides. But you are making a mistake.
– Can you say at least how many of the six principles have been agreed upon?
– I will give the same answer to this question as to the other ones.
– In our words, one of the principles is the provision of a land connection between Armenia and Karabakh. What does it mean? Is it only a connecting way or it is the regions of Lachin and Kelbajar between Armenia and Karabakh?
– You are trying to touch upon the details, which would be published if there was a need.
– In the end of September the speaker of the Armenian parliament Hovik Abrahamyan met with the foreign affairs minister of Switzerland. According to the statement released by the parliament, the latter said that there were active negotiations with the both parties to create adequate conditions for the Armenian-Turkish reconciliation. You said that there are no negotiations with Turkey. Has Switzerland discussed that issue with Armenia?
– One of our correspondents contacted with the foreign minister of Switzerland and asked him. He said that he had not said such thing. What should I say if the foreign minister of Switzerland refuted that information and said no?
– Does this mean that the parliament released a wrong statement?
– You should ask that question to the one who released that statement.