Today by noon the RA government should be able to convince the chairman of the Heritage faction Raffi Hovhannisian to once again postpone the bill on recognition of the NKR independence. Otherwise the government will have to vote against the bill on the recognition at the parliament. Or it may boycott and not participate in the voting. If they vote “against” it will mean that the government is a traitor and is against the independence of the NKR. In the second case the impression is the same, however it comes with smaller portions. This is actually an unprecedented event during the regulation process and the history of the NA. And we will witness the solution of this conflict of interests today. Yesterday right after the voting the NA chairman Hovik Abrahamyan invited all the heads of factions to his office for a discussion by trying to convince Hovhannisian to postpone the voting. The discussion, which lasted over an hour, was in vain as Hovhannisian was not convinced in the opposite. “Moreover, if by 12 p.m. a final agreement is not reached then the bill will be posted for voting,” stated Hovhannisian after leaving Abrahamyan’s office. Talking to RFE/RL’s Armenian service Hovannisian said his discussions with the parliament speaker and leaders of the four other parliamentary factions had not produced a compromise and said the vote would be held by all means unless such a compromise was found until noon. The political parties of Armenia’s ruling coalition issued a statement later on Thursday explaining their decision to opt out of the vote if it was held. Let us recall that Armenia has been reluctant to formally recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent entity despite having close political and economic ties with the de-facto leadership in the disputed region that has been under ethnic Armenian control since the 1994 ceasefire. Armenia also largely represents Karabakh at talks with Azerbaijan as official Baku refuses to recognize Stepanakert’s de facto self-rule. Officials in Baku have also repeatedly warned that Armenia’s recognizing Karabakh as independent from Azerbaijan will increase the likelihood of renewed hostilities in the conflict zone. The Heritage party has periodically tried to submit its bill to the NA discussion several times but it didn’t work. This year it worked because this year they have amended the NA bylaw, as a result of which the parliamentary opposition was enabled to submit any bill at the extraordinary order. The Heritage perfectly understands that there is no way it can succeed with its six MPs and the possible support of the ARF if the three coalition parties don’t vote for the bill or if the largest NA faction the Republicans do not vote for the bill. Besides that there were numerous announcements made by various experts and opposition politicians that as long as the negotiations are proceeding, it is not expedient for Armenia to recognize Karabakh’s independence. Or even if Armenia recognizes it doesn’t mean that the rest of the world will recognize. And besides that this recognition will preclude the negotiations process and create a possible war threat. So why does the Heritage try to push this bill and embarrass the government? Republican faction chair Galust Sahakyan stated that his party is one of the advocates of the recognition of Karabakh independence and when the time comes, the political majority will adopt a bill, but now they are not doing it in order not to impede the negotiation process. He says that if the recognition is an end in itself, it cannot be useful and this is the issue to be adopted with 131 votes in favor. Since the Republican Party cannot vote against Karabakh recognition, it will abstain from. The peace talks over the Nagorno Karabakh conflict are spearheaded by the OSCE Minsk Group – US, France and Russia. Earlier today the coalition issued a statement saying that unilateral recognition of Artsakh’s independence by Armenia will harm the peace talks and “is not in line with the constructive stance adopted by Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan” in the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group. “It is great responsibility not to vote for draft bill on Karabakh’s independence but the parliamentary majority is ready to shoulder it,” he stressed. Therefore, under present circumstances the coalition decided not to vote for but it does not mean it will vote against. The point is bill should not be approved, either quorum should not be reached or no decision should be made at all. Sahakyan also recalled that the Supreme Council of Armenia decided that Nagorno-Karabakh is inseparable part of Armenia but it by no means affected the solution to the problem. “Thus, decision on Karabakh’s recognition might yield no results as well,” Sahakyan noted. According to him, approval of the document would mean that Armenia changed the rules which will displease the OSCE Minsk Group. Enemies of Armenia and Karabakh can immediately take advantage of the situation. The MP considers that such bill can be approved in case of urgency when all methods to resolve Karabakh conflict are exhausted, when Azerbaijan declares war. Sahakyan is still hopeful they would manage to come to terms with the Heritage party and postpone the vote for two months. “In this case draft bill will be on the parliament’s agenda,” he stated. The Heritage realizes that its bill is subject to fiasco and thus has only one option to send the bill to the supreme committee for an approval and thus include it in the big NA agenda. Or they can discuss it by the first reading today and prolong it for second reading whenever it’s necessary. But in this case as well the coalition parties are not sure whether even after receiving political dividends the authors of the bill wouldn’t demand the second reading after some time off. “I have no great expectations over Sargsyan-Aliyev-Medvedev meeting in Astrakhan on October 27,” MP from Armenian Revolutionary Federation Dashnaktsutyun (ARFD) Armen Rustamyan stated at a press conference on Tuesday. “If a problem is not solved, tangible results of the talks are out of question. The Karabakh conflict is not resolved due to Azerbaijan’s unconstructive stance. In this regard, no progress is expected on the matter. Thus for the ARF politician this initiative of the Heritage is not quite clear. Several days ago Abrahamyan stated if after his meeting in Astrakhan Serzh Sargsyan returns and says that we should recognize the independence we will do so. The meeting organized by Dmitry Medvedev was a surprise for Armenia and the political circles of Armenia were predicting that a document would be signed on the NKR. Yesterday evening it became known that the parties have come to an agreement to exchange war hostages. After the talks in Astrakhan, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev expressed a hope that Armenia and Azerbaijan could move closer to resolving their differences in the current negotiations. “We have come a certain way, which gives grounds to hope that if the sides work well over the next month … then by the time of the OSCE summit in Kazakhstan on December 1-2 we could reach an agreed variant of common regulation principles,” the Russian leader said. And yesterday Hovik Abrahamyan was persuading Hovhannisian to prolong the voting of the bill till December. Perhaps the results of the expected OSCE summit in December are so favorable for the government that they rush the process of voting.
