– Have you analyzed why the negotiations of the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan didn’t have any results and why the situation became worse after the negotiations in Rambeau? I mean the critical announcements of Aliev and the interview of Kocharyan afterwards, which according to the US Ambassador in Azerbaijan, Rino Harnish, made the situation worse.
– Back in April 2004, the foreign affairs ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan met with the co-chairmen of the Minsk group in Prague, where they made a principal agreement on the Karabagh conflict solution, which was adopted by the European security and cooperation organization in Warsaw in 2005. According to this document Armenia had to return the occupied territories. Meanwhile the parties had to create conditions for refugees to return to their places and provide good conditions for them. Then later the parties had to organize a referendum in Karabakgh for the purpose of defining the status of Karabakh. This is the principal basement of the agreement. So let’s remember the further developments. In 2005 there were parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan, after which the voters organized a lot of rallies. In the same month there was a Constitutional referendum in Armenia, which was violated and was organized in an atmosphere of fraudulence. The international community closed its eyes and ignored both the Armenian and Azerbaijani electoral violations and fraud. In both cases the reason of demonstrating patience was one. As for Armenia, Robert Kocharyan and Vardan Oskanyan had pretended that the existing authorities are the only ones that are able to solve the problem and that is why they should be protected. For the same reason they also ignored the fraudulence in Azerbaijan.
It was not either by chance that several provisions appeared in the Constitution according to which the president has personal immunity and can not be judged for some certain actions. According to another provision the National Assembly has a right to verify Constitutional amendments. This means that some backgrounds are created for the purpose of solving the Karabagh problem on the basis of some certain agreements reached in advance. And after all these kinds of violations of democratic norms the parties did not reach anything in the negotiations in Rambouillet after having agreed on main provisions in 2005 in Prague. Of course after such developments the international organizations, the co-chairman countries of the Minsk group started to think that they had created adequate conditions for the presidents to keep their positions and later when it was time already to give a “payback” (to reach a basic agreement on Karabakh issue, because it was not a secret for the presidents that they would be faced with this in 2006), they refused to do so. As for the critical announcements, Robert Kocharyan has to make such announcements because of the fact that the developments in January-February, 1998 in Armenia were explained in a way, according to which the suggestions made by the former authorities were contradicting our national interests. Later they started to explain to people that there was also another way to solve the problem and that it could be solved only by Robert Kocharyan and his administration. And now he sees that he didn’t keep his promises and his own fiasco (due to which people resisted him so long). This means that Kocharyan chose a strategy of disorienting the attention of public by drawing them to the possibility of restarting war. From a political and diplomatic view this behavior is characteristic to people in despair. Personally I understand him: a leader that understands that people don’t back him, thanks to whom the society is not united now and who is despaired, has nothing to do but take these kinds of actions. Due to the fact that people don’t back him he has always relied on having good relations with foreign powers, which has always been based on the Karabakh conflict criteria. Now both the international organizations and the internal powers have understood that his promises were baseless and are disappointed now, and now Kocharyan is hanging in thin air. But people hanging in the air are dangerous for the state. And this is the reason why the NU wants to support the change of government and meanwhile doesn’t want to hurt Kocharyan. In this situation the best solution for Kocharyan is to resign as soon as he can and organize fair and democratic presidential and governmental elections. Furthermore, I think the positions of Kocharyan are getting weaker because of not keeping his promises given to Iran. The point is that according to the principal agreement on Karabagh conflict peaceful solution international peacekeepers are to be located in the territory of Karabagh after taking the Armenian forces out of it. These peacekeepers are the ones that will be responsible for keeping peace in the region. This means that the international peacekeeping troops will be located along the Arax river bank, which is now controlled by the military forces of Karabakh. I understand that in this kind of difficult political situation he couldn’t resist such developments. Regarding the announcement of Rino Harnish, please note the following: in fact the US Ambassador to Azerbaijan confesses that the relationships of the Minsk group co-chairman countries and the fact that they ignored a lot of violations in these two countries have not brought to any positive results. Don’t they understand that this kind of difficult problem can only be solved by authorities that have gained the trust of people? Now they are getting their “payback”.
– Don’t you think that the attempt of the US to indirectly blame the Armenian authorities of being involved in drug business is an attempt to pressure them?
– All outcomes are a result of foreign affairs policy, including our country. They shouldn’t lie to the international community that they can solve this problem, because not having the trust of people they will never demonstrate adequate political will and can never solve the problem in a way, which will be agreed both in Armenia and in Karabagh. There will be more similar announcements and the authorities are the ones making those announcements.
– Do you agree with the announcements that Robert Kocharyan has a “non-constructive approach”, which creates backgrounds for war?
– Mr. Kocharyan just wants to create an imitation of war conditions. This is his last attempt that he is able to demonstrate thinking that people will gather together in case of danger. But he doesn’t want to confess that people will never back such authorities which are the main reason for numerous bad things. And now there is mass hysteria both in Azerbaijan and in Armenia. The powers that are creating backgrounds for war are the ones that are doing what the Armenian and Azerbaijani authorities tell them to do. As to why the Azerbaijani authorities do this, that is up to the analysts to do. As for our authorities, they have found a way how to cover the mass corruption and violations on their part, but the way they have chosen for doing this is the most dangerous one and will never come true. In this case people will really gather together against war. I want to note one more time that only such authorities can solve the problem of Karabagh which are not blamed by people and have the trust of people. And what is more important, those authorities that will be elected by public vote and through democratic elections.
– Do you think that the announcement of Robert Kocharyan saying that in case the high ranked officials of Azerbaijan continue making critical announcements relying on their military forces, Armenia will recognize the independence of Karabagh “frightens” Azerbaijan and will make them stop these kinds of things? What do you think? Are they afraid of this?
– There are two approaches to this question. On the one hand if we want to get rid of these authorities as soon as we can we should petition Kocharyan to make more announcements, because due to these announcements everyone understands that he is not in the place he should be (I mean the international community, because our society already knows this). The co-chairman countries will understand that Kocharyan failed to justify his promises and they shouldn’t believe him. This means that this announcement is made by a person that has lost his orientation and is despaired. On the other hand it is pity for me that our country still doesn’t have any strategy of national security, due to which our society and the international community could understand our approach and which could serve as a basis for announcements. From this view the issue of resignation is still outstanding. Now let me ask you a question. Is there any country that has backed the foreign affairs policy of Armenia openly? There is no country to have done this. So what is the problem if it is announced internationally that Armenia is an aggressor country and that they recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan? On February 22 when Vladimir Putin was in Azerbaijan, part of the Russian year in Azerbaijan, he announced that if the Karabagh conflict didn’t exist the trade between Azerbaijan and Russia (which is twice more than two years ago) would cover over 5 billion dollars. This means that he openly made a hint that because of the conflict the Russian business suffers too. This speaks about the low reputation of Armenia. Armenia is not a political factor any more, which is very dangerous. This is the reason why we say that the existing authorities are a serious danger for our state and that they should go away.
– Don’t you think that it is high time for the opposition to take certain actions to remind the authorities that before coming to rule they assured people that the purpose of their job was to solve the problem peacefully but not to lead to war?
– Yes, I think time has come, and it is not by chance that we are going to organize a conference on March 10 to discuss all those issues one more time and later the NU will present their official approach.
– The “Justice” alliance insists on organizing parliamentary hearings on Karabagh conflict issue, along with Vardan Oskanyan and Robert Kocharyan and that later they will decide what to do. And what will the opposition and NU do if Robert Kocharyan takes part in this hearing and says that his announcements saying that the negotiations were good or false and the issue of restarting the war is outstanding now?
– The optimism of our colleagues surprises me. So isn’t it clear what kind of solutions can be? They will come there and speak like school children and say proudly that the negotiations in Rambeau were a victory for them, that Kocharyan closed the door and left everyone behind… This is their style and what they are capable of doing. And if you are calling someone and asking explanations from him this means that you still have hopes for him. I don’t have any hopes for these authorities to solve the conflict in fair conditions. These authorities are only an obstacle and danger for Karabagh on the way to peaceful negotiations. In other words the NU doesn’t think this is a good idea to invite them to the NA. On the other hand the authorities will be glad to organize such hearings. In this case they will be able to mobilize some MPs to make critical speeches to protect them, to demonstrate to the international community that on the one hand they press on them and on the other hand the parliament and Karabagh have critical approaches. These are certain political actions, but it is already clear to everyone that these instructions come from the president’s office, because they repeat these things all the time to present it to the international community.
– What do you think about such estimations that Robert Kocharyan wants to create backgrounds and then announce about war conditions in the country, which is not prohibited by the Constitution, for the purpose to prolong the period into his tenure?
– Would Kocharyan be able to stay into his tenure after the fraudulence of the presidential elections in 2003 if the resistance and silence of the international community didn’t exist?-of course not. Or would he be able to stay in his tenure after the violations of April 5, 12, 2004? He wouldn’t even stay after the violations of the Constitutional referendum if they didn’t keep silence. They kept silence only for the purpose of coming to a final agreement in Rambeau. If we use the terminology of Kocharyan, we may say that they have “cheated” the international community, but the international community will not punish the public, but will punish the ones who cheated them. They will create good conditions for people to make their dreams and expectations of these 7-8 years come true and get rid of these criminal authorities.