During a joint press conference with EU special representative in the Southern Caucasus Peter Semnebi and Foreign Minister of Affairs of Armenia Vartan Oskanyan, something very interesting happened.
While discussing the Karabagh conflict resolution, Peter Semnebi said that he believes that not resolving the conflict and closing borders with neighboring countries will hurt Armenia’s economic development. This is interesting in that it contradicts Vartan Oskanyan’s words, when he said that Armenia could develop even if it were in a blockade for a hundred years. Journalists asked Oskanyan yesterday if he had told Semnebi about that during the conference.
“I haven’t told him anything because his assistant knows about that. I just wanted to say that if the borders are open, Armenia will develop at a much faster rate,” reassured Vartan Oskanyan.
But the Foreign Minister of Armenia did discuss issues concerning the conflict resolution with the EU special representative in the Southern Caucasus.
“The European Union is striving for active involvement in the conflict resolution in the region,” said P. Semnebi. He places high value on the work done by the French co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group, especially the fact that there is a chance to resolve the conflict this year and the negotiating sides must take advantage of that.
“Both sides must understand that the current situation is very dangerous. They realize that it’s time to come to terms,” said Mr. Semnebi during the press conference. As for the European Union’s aid to speed up the conflict resolution, Semnebi said that the former EU special representative in the Southern Caucasus Heyki Talvitie has already formed grounds for that.
“However, my problems are a little different from others,” said the new representative and added that whereas before the issue was to evaluate the situation at hand and come up with ways of solving it, now it’s all about how the European Union can lend a helping hand to resolve the conflicts in the region.
“I don’t think there is practically anything that I can do, which my predecessor hasn’t been able to do. The important thing is that the EU actually wants to be more active in resolving regional conflicts,” said the EU special representative. In his words, “Azerbaijan is most probably discussing resolving the conflict through war.” But Semnebi is totally not in favor of war.
“During my visit to Azerbaijan, I announced that resolving the Karabagh conflict through war will be fatal,” said Semnebi and hopes that his message was clear. According to V. Oskanyan:
“There is no war resolution for the Karabagh conflict. Proof of that is the fact that Armenia won the war, but the conflict remains unresolved to this day. Azerbaijan started a war two times and lost both times. But as we can see, the conflict is still in the center of attention. The conflict resolution must go through negotiations and can only succeed by compromises. It’s really impossible without compromises,” said Vartan Oskanyan. The Foreign Minister of Armenia also said that Armenia had already made its compromises.
“Armenia has really made the compromises. We are almost on the verge of resolving the conflict and have nowhere to turn back. Armenia is simply waiting for Azerbaijan to take one step and end this once and for all.”
But Vartan Oskanyan neither denies nor confirms the rumors that both sides came to an agreement in Rambulle because Azerbaijan has demanded the Kelbajar territory from Armenia besides the five mentioned.
“Things didn’t go as planned in Rambulle, but there were some positive sides.”
According to Mr. Oskanyan, the meeting of American co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group Steven Mann and Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Elmar Mahmedyarov in Washington will determine the future sequence of events of the Karabagh conflict resolution.
P.S. EU special representative in the Southern Caucasus Peter Semnebi announced yesterday that he can’t make any prediction about whether or not there will be an attack on Iran. But he did say that the “EU realizes how important Armenian-Iranian relations are”.