The participants of Dortmund conference have sent a letter to Youri Merzlyakov and Matthew Bryza, co-chairmen of OSCE Minsk Group, in which they introduced the principles of the alternative version of Karabakh conflict resolution prepared by the participants of the Dortmund conference.
The Dortmund conference is a non-official format to find ways driving to the Karabakh conflict settlement. This conference has Russian and American representatives too; indeed the difference is the fact that besides Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as Karabakh participates in the discussions. The latest conference in the framework of the Dortmund program was its 11th conference organized last month. In this format Armenia was represented by head of ADP Aram G. Sargsyan, RA former defense minister Vagharshak Harutyunyan, UCR leader Haik Babukhanyan, professor Alexandr Manasyan and others. Yesterday A. Sargsyan, V. Harutyunyan and H. Babukhanyan organized a press conference to inform the details of the latest Dortmund conference. They informed that the OSCE co-chairs are going to discuss their recommendations during their next meeting, which will take place this month. As for the mentioned recommendation, it rejects the “territory against security” version and anticipates compromise territories without advocating against each other, i.e. they recommend that either of the conflicting parties should give as much territory as the other one equally. H. Babukhanyan said that the existing authorities don’t do enough work to settle the conflict. He says that following the diplomatic gesture of Karabakh concerning Georgia, it failed to be included in the “association of the unrecognized states” and Georgia decided to participate in a railway construction program that does not cross the territory of Armenia. “Just following the day when Georgia agreed to participate in the Kars-Akhalkalak railway construction program Karabakh had to join the association of the unrecognized states. I mean that we should be more active in this framework” said the UCR leader. The participants of the Dortmund conference have entitled their version as “phasic and package version”. They have also sent their version to the governments of the conflicting countries, but haven’t received any answer yet. Yesterday they said that the policy that is being implemented by the existing authorities connected with the conflict may drive the negotiations to a deadlock, because of which the war may start again. They also say that it is very dangerous to allocate any peacekeeping military troops in the region and it may be a reason for a new war too. They also think that the parties should discover all the details of the negotiations and the arrangements so that they can get prepared for the possible outcome. “The political leaders can negotiate, but only the public can reach peace” said A. Sargsyan. The participants of the Dortmund conference have agreed that the issue of the status of Karabakh should not be connected with the issue of territories. Besides that, Mr. Sargsyan refereed to the Kars contract and said, “During our meetings we also insist that the Azeri participants discuss the issue of Nakhidjevan as well”. The participants of the Dortmund conference don’t think that the behavior of the Azeri representatives is straight since, as A. Sargsyan says, they don’t agree anything without agreeing their policy with the Azeri government and very often they agree with provisions that are out of their own interests. Mr. Sargsyan thinks the reason is the following, “Kocharyan is deeply corrupted and depends from the international institutions”. Yesterday the participants of the conference said that in order to achieve we need to be straighter in our policy. They also informed that according to their preliminary information as well as the co-chairs were going to participate in the last conference, however they changed their minds since, as Mr. Sargsyan says, before the next round of the conference Kocharyan agreed with the version connected with territories and they decided that they didn’t have to complicate the situation by participating in extra discussions. Yesterday the participants said that the policy of the existing authorities was “losing”. They also reminded that Karabakh used to be a part of the negotiation process. Do they mean that Armenia has lost in the framework of the negotiations since 1998? Concerning this question V. Harutyunyan thinks that Armenia has lost, however he thinks there is a new approach now, which is the idea of referendum in Karabakh that he thinks is positive. “Of course we can assume that Kocharyan has not lost anything during these eight years and he has just prolonged the solution. In fact, he has not compromised anything. I think partially it is an achievement. However, the negotiation tendency is serious and we should be more careful,” said A. Sargsyan.