Does Armenia agree with conflict settlement principles?

21/07/2006 Arman GALOYAN

RA Minister of Foreign Affairs Vartan Oskanyan didn’t deny the rumors claiming that he might be nominated as president’ during the upcoming presidential elections. Currently, there are rumors saying that the next person to be nominated by the current authorities is Vartan Oskanyan. During a press conference, journalists asked him whether he was going to take part in the upcoming presidential elections or not. “I think that I can still play a role in developing Armenia, the governmental structures and other relative processes. As to how I will take part, I can’t say how I am going to do that because I haven’t thought about that yet. Only time will show”, said Vartan Oskanyan and added that he hadn’t been offered to join any political parties so far. “We shouldn’t think of which party has a potential to come to power in the country, but should think of what kind of issues we should address in the coming decade and how we are going to do that”, said Vardan Oskanyan.

Recently, the Baku-Tbilisi-Jeyhan oil pipeline started functioning and in the future Azerbaijan expects to get huge profits from that. How is Armenia to counterbalance its power with Azerbaijan in the future? According to V. Oskanyan, Armenia has three resources of counterbalancing its economy with Azerbaijan: internal, Diaspora and international resources. “We have only one way of competing with their oil; it is to do our best for the development of our state and use our resources in the most optimal and effective way. I don’t only mean in the framework of material background, but as well as international competition and leading positions in the region. The positions that we have now are not so bad, I would say that they are good. I think this reality can be seen not only in figures, but visually as well. We are a leading country in the region, which is a result of a lot of work and effort”, said Vartan Oskanyan. Vartan Oskanyan thinks that it is very important for the state to overcome the current problems. “It is very important to organize fair and democratic elections in the future. We should address issues correctly now in order to be able to succeed in the future. People should consciously decide whom they trust the leadership”, said Vartan Oskanyan. The minister said that he hoped that Armenia would organize fair and democratic elections.

Does Oskanyan contradict Kocharyan?

Much has changed ever since the OSCE co-chairmen discovered principles and facts concerning the Karabakh conflict negotiations. In spite of that, Vardan Oskanyan said that he appreciated the fact that the co-chairmen discovered the negotiation principles. “Generally I don’t see any problems here. Furthermore, I think it is good for us because our society can actively discuss issues concerning the negotiations”, said Vartan Oskanyan and added that what the co-chairmen discovered was not a surprise for them. Vartan Oskanyan thinks that some political parties may not agree with the mentioned version of the conflict settlement, but Yerevan agrees with it. “Currently I don’t want and, furthermore, I will not make any attempts to persuade anyone to agree with the provisions of that document because Azerbaijan has not agreed with it yet. If the mentioned document was ideal for us, I would tell people that it was ideal, besides that there wouldn’t be a need of pursuing them of that. We have said that this document is not ideal for us, but it is a compromise document and contains balanced principles that can serve as a basis for us to continue the negotiations. Why should we tell our society that this document is good and we should agree with it while Azerbaijan has not agreed with it yet? We are currently in that phase. When we reach a final agreement between the two parties, between the three parties, we will start our dialogue with people and political powers. We haven’t entered that phase yet”, said Vartan Oskanyan. In response to the fact that Karabakh does not agree with it, V. Oskanyan said, “They have been informed about all steps taken. I can’t say that they have agreed with all the steps taken so far, but can assure that they have been informed about everything beforehand. I think that the principles in the document can be agreed by Armenia”, said the minister.

American co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk group, Matthew Bryza will visit the region at the end of July. According to V. Oskanyan, during the mentioned visit they will revise their approach with Matthew Bryza and tell him that Armenia agrees with the principles of the conflict settlement. V. Oskanyan hopes that during Bryza’s visit the sides will be able to clarify some details concerning the future processes connected with the conflict settlement. In regard to those steps V. Oskanyan didn’t mention any details. “The OSCE Minsk group is the only mission now that is able to drive the process of negotiations successfully”, said Oskanyan. According to V. Oskanyan, Armenia appreciates all initiatives taken to support the peaceful conflict settlement process, as well as the efforts of Russia, Iran and the US. V. Oskanyan says that the group has not finished its mission yet and it is early to speak about a separate country yet. It is worth mentioning that NATO has informed the sides that it had come up with new recommendations concerning the conflict settlement principles and is going to present them to the sides soon. We asked Vartan Oskanyan whether he had been informed about those recommendations or not and what Armenian thought about the fact that NATO was going to take control of the negotiations. “If they want to make recommendations, we are ready to discuss them, but that still doesn’t mean that NATO wants to substitute the format of OSCE Minsk group”, said Oskanyan and added, “it is nonsense to speak about replacing the Minsk group”.

Recently, the Russian and American co-chairmen have spoken contradicting ides. Concerning the note of Matthew Bryza regarding a circle agreement, Russian co-chairman Youri Marzlyakov said that there wasn’t any circle agreement on the negotiations table. Concerning the mentioned contradicting announcements Vartan Oskanyan said that there was a misunderstanding of terms, “Merzlyakov probably means that there isn’t a final draft agreement yet ready to be signed. As for the fact that there is a document on the negotiations table, which contains principles on conflict settlement, it is true”, assured Vartan Oskanyan.