– Today, many people are comparing the Karabagh conflict with the conflict status back in 1997 and say that currently, it is very dangerous. Back in 1997, it was the Karabagh conflict and the revolution that made first president of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan sign his resignation. The opposition considers the Karabagh conflict status as crucial, yet it isn’t doing anything to encourage the people to get out there and fight. Why is it so indifferent?
– The Karabagh conflict will continue to be one of the major cosmopolitan issues for a couple of more years. As for not taking certain steps with the people and the opposition, I must recall that the first president had publicly expressed his opinion, after which there were some discussions and then the people starting thinking about a revolution. The current president has not expressed any opinion. He has just said a couple of things during a press conference, but didn’t really express his point of view and his possible solutions.
– In your opinion, have the political methods for conflict resolution changed?
– For the past 18 years, the Karabagh conflict has been the major issue for Armenia and Karabagh. The future and even survival of both countries all depends on the conflict resolution. In the first ten years of independence, the people of Armenia and the international community got acquainted with the essence of the conflict. Basically, the people of Karabagh took advantage of their autonomy, freedom and, as a result of a national struggle, declared independence. Karabagh declared independence in correspondence to international norms and it was accepted by everyone. The negotiations up to 1998 and the observations are proof of that. During those years, the essence of the conflict was based on the thoughts and opinions expressed by the negotiators. During all conflict negotiations, Armenia has been considered as the one power that goes along with Karabagh’s autonomy and right for independence. In other words, Armenia has never been looked at as part of the conflict, but rather the international community has always considered Armenia as the one in favor of participating in the conflict resolution. Armenia proved that by not violating the cease-fire and also helped stabilize the political field in Karabagh, as well as helped start regional cooperation. Of course, my accomplices and I have disagreed on many points during the negotiations in that stage, but we only disagreed on the key elements and different parts of the negotiations (especially the phase and packet solutions). But I must say that Armenia’s political methods of resolving the conflict were acceptable. Then, all of a sudden, the Armenian authorities changed their methods for some reason and the conflict resolution took a turn.
– What do you mean by that? After all, you are not familiar with the current plan.
-I mean the Karabagh conflict as a whole, as well as the factors and participants. Basically, the international community looked at the conflict as Karabagh’s struggle for national autonomy, for its right to have ethnic minorities with different cultural backgrounds living in Karabagh and human rights, but then the conflict turned into an intergovernmental and regional conflict. As a result, Armenia went from being a direct participant to a country resolving the conflict through intergovernmental negotiations and was considered an aggressor country. I understand that it is better to have Armenia’s status be recognized by the diplomatic countries, rather than Karabagh’s unrecognized status, but just that point was not enough to turn Armenia into a country part of the conflict. It was dangerous and had no outlook. If we take into consideration the fact that an unrecognized state can raise the issue of autonomy, then it’s kind of hard to understand why Armenia’s role in the conflict negotiations changed. This hurt Armenia in that there was a change in giving names to certain parts of the conflict. They started calling “liberated territories” as “debatable”, then “seized”, and now “guaranteed zone for security of seized lands”. This is enough for anyone to see that despite the propaganda spread by the mass media, the conflict negotiations have come to the point where nobody pays attention to Armenia’s old approaches. As for the Armenian authorities’ new approaches, they go against those of the participants and the national interests of Karabagh. Nobody pays attention to what the people of Karabagh have to say and have come up with the following model: “If the people of Karabagh are fully guaranteed security, then the seized lands will be returned. We consider the non-enclave status of Karabagh as an obligatory national security guarantee, according to which we will keep some territories as a passage.”
But everyone knows that when cease-fire was declared, even then Armenia had many demands. After all, the Shahumyan region, Getashen and a part of Martakert remained under Azerbaijan’s control. We were sure of that when cease-fire was declared and we predicted that that was going to be the reason for Armenia and Karabagh to start a struggle. However, those territories weren’t debated during the negotiations and weren’t considered as territories that would be returned.
– In your opinion, why didn’t Armenia do anything about those territories?
– Armenia didn’t do anything because only Karabagh had the right to speak out. By moving Karabagh out of the picture, Armenia took on the role of substituting for Karabagh in the negotiations. The Armenian authorities didn’t realize that the conflict would shift a little, since Armenia is an independent country and is part of the European Council. That was obviously going to lead to the point where now nobody remembers the demands. In that case, the only guarantee for gaining the independent status of Karabagh was to compromise the liberated territories. I think that is exactly what some officials say when they talk about making compromises in the media and on television. They say that the liberated territories are not Armenian territories, etc.
– Then how can you explain the Armenian authorities’ positive outlooks for the negotiations in Rambulle?
– Although the Armenian authorities try to keep the facts a secret, however I think that the conflict resolution process has come to the point where no resolution benefits us. I think that the comments on the effectiveness of the negotiations, the Kocharyan-Aliev meetings are just put on as a show and only serve as a means to provide alternatives for the people. This is all based on keeping power and striving to solve internal political issues. In addition, this prolongs the Karabagh conflict resolution.
– As an oppositionist, what kinds of resolutions do you see?
– I think that the National Assembly must hold a special session on the Karabagh conflict during which the members of the parliament must present the sequence of events and the situation at hand. For example, we would all like to know just how the conflict has changed over the years, what’s being discussed and who the participants are. Have the people of Karabagh and the authorities approved of Armenia’s new politics for the Karabagh conflict? If it has been approved, then how can we explain the announcements made by the president of Karabagh and some NGOs directed towards the people of Armenia? Has Armenia’s new form of politics been discussed by the National Assembly or the Security Council of the parliament? If yes, then what is the basis? What I would also like to know is how the Armenian authorities picture the sequence of events after Robert Kocharyan’s announcements about ethnic differences between Armenians and Azerbaijani and how they plan on participating in the conflict.