Armenian President Robert Kocharyan still hasn’t said anything about this after the meeting. Instead, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Vartan Oskanyan hosted a press conference on December 1. He considered Ilham Aliyev’s announcement very “optimistic”, however, at the same time, he mentioned that after the meeting in Minsk, it’s clear that the negotiations are not in a labyrinth and, according to Vartan Oskanyan, “we couldn’t say the same after the previous meetings.” V. Oskanyan also announced that if I. Aliyev thinks that the negotiations are in the final stage, then he must immediately agree with having Nagorno Karabakh participate in the next negotiations because “the conflict settlement is impossible in the last stage without the participation of Nagorno Karabakh”. According to the Foreign Minister, the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan will give assignments to the ministers of the countries respectively to continue the negotiations with certain guides as to what kinds of issues they must focus on.
According to V. Oskanyan, the last Kocharyan-Aliev meeting in Minsk was positive, it was in a constructive atmosphere and the presidents drew their attention to the issues that still remain unsolved, but it wouldn’t be right to say that the presidents have come to terms on those issues. Although there are no agreements, however there are “approaches”.
In his interview with Day.az, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mamediarov said that there are 8-9 principles for the Karabakh conflict settlement and the majority of those principles have already been agreed on and “we can say that there is one principle left”. E. Mamediarov didn’t mention which principle in particular and only said that it’s a sensitive issue. Mamediarov also said that the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen have already confirmed the dates December 4-5 as the dates for the meeting of the ministers in Brussels. According to Mamediarov, the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers will also meet the three OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen and the personal representative of the current OSCE president Anjey Kasprshik.
The Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan said that it’s quite possible that the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet before the end of this year. During the press conference last Friday, Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanyan said that the resolution of the “frozen conflicts” presented by GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova) will be discussed at the UN on December 7, however Oskanyan says that he’s still not familiar with the text.
“Even if that resolution passes, it won’t make the negotiations positive, on the contrary, it will create rather serious obstacles for the continuation of the negotiations. Armenia believes that this resolution is absurd,” said Oskanyan and added that it wouldn’t be preferable to approve that resolution especially now, when the negotiations are progressing and there is a good atmosphere.
The countries making up GUAM are trying to settle their “frozen conflicts” based on the territorial integrity principle. In fact, V. Oskanyan also announced that Armenia doesn’t wish to join GUAM because, as Oskanyan said, “we don’t care about the ideology of that organization.”
There are contradictions about Armenia’s role
Touching upon Ilham Aliyev’s announcement after the meeting with Robert Kocharyan, when Aliev said that Azerbaijan has not changed its role and that the Karabakh conflict must be settled based on Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity principle, Oskanyan said that the Armenian side hasn’t changed its role either and that the issue must be solved based on the autonomy right of the people of Karabakh. According to Vartan Oskanyan, there is only one way to coordinate the contradiction of these two principles.
“It’s the idea of a referendum. In other words, the people of Nagorno Karabakh, to whom all of this refers, should be given the right to decide what they want-either Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, or its total autonomy. Autonomy means election.” Read this announcement carefully. We can draw two conclusions from that. The first is that when Armenia, in this case Vartan Oskanyan, says “Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity”, he perceives Azerbaijan as Azerbaijan including Karabakh, or exactly like Aliyev. Otherwise, what’s the meaning of letting the people of Nagorno Karabakh decide whether they want “Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity” or not. The second conclusion is that Armenia contradicts itself with its role on the Karabakh issue because for years, Armenian President Robert Kocharyan, Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanyan, Defense Minister Serge Sarkisyan and other state officials have claimed that yes, Armenia recognizes Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, however the Karabakh conflict has nothing to do with Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity because Karabakh has never been an independent state of Azerbaijan.
After all this, as Azerbaijan continues to claim that Nagorno Karabakh is a part of Azerbaijan and that the conflict must be solved based on Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity principle, suddently announces: “Why are we debating on which principle to choose? Let’s ask the people of Karabakh which principle they want to solve the issue with, thus mentioning that when we say the “preservation of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity”, we can understand the same thing, but quickly.