“Armenia continues to keep Azerbaijan’s territories, including Nagorno-Karabakh and the seven regions, occupied”. This is what was stated in the Armenia section of the recent U.S. State Department report. We know that after reading this, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Vardan Oskanyan had mentioned that that was an “error and a misprint”. During a press conference held on Wednesday at the “Regnum” agency, V. Oskanyan claimed that that section is an “evident error”.
“This is a document dealing with human rights and not a document on the Karabagh conflict. It is not a document expressing, legalizing or forcing U.S. policy on that issue,” said V. Oskanyan. Oskanyan also mentioned that it is an “agreement reached as a result of his direct contacts” and that the U.S. State Department admits that that was an “evident error”. He stresses the word “evident”. “It is impossible to change it immediately due to bureaucracy, but everything will be done to correct the error either in the announcement or the website in reference to that issue,” announced Vardan Oskanyan. But when journalists reminded Oskanyan that the announcement of the U.S. Embassy of Armenia followed the report release where the U.S. Embassy did not show any sign of admitting the “error”, the Minister had this to say:
“I had not contacted the U.S. State Department when the embassy made that statement. I realize that what I say will be heard at the State Department and I can not go off-topic, otherwise they will say that Oskanyan is a liar. I am authorized to say today that the State Department realizes and accepts that that was an evident error and will try to fix that error. If I am wrong, I am certain that the State Department will hear what I had to say tomorrow,” added Oskanyan.
Interestingly, how did that “erroneous formulation” find its way to the section on Azerbaijan, or another statement claiming that “Shusha is the capital city of Nagorno-Karabakh which is historically populated by the Azerbaijani”? In response to this question, the minister also stressed that that report does not have any legal power. As for the “different types of formulations founding the documents”, V. Oskanyan mentioned that “other documents may also be found with different formulations that favor Armenia 100% that the Azerbaijani protest”. After that, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia literally announced the following:
“I think that the human rights reports on Armenia and Azerbaijan were both written by one person and that person’s perception of the issue was made up. That evidently does not reflect U.S. policy on the issue. That is why I think that it can not be speculated”.
So, according to V. Oskanyan, the U.S. State Department report, or at least a part of it, does not reflect the position of the U.S.; in fact, it is simply the reflection of somebody’s “perceptions”. The only thing left to say was that that person who had tried to present his “perceptions” illegally as America’s position had nothing to do with the State Department at all, but simply works as, let’s say, a guard somewhere near the State Department. It turns out that anyone can insert his “perceptions” in the U.S. State Department reports, but for reasons unknown, the fact of the matter is that the “perceptions” of the Armenian side are not stated in the report…Mr. Oskanyan believes that if Azerbaijan tries to “speculate” the abovementioned section of the U.S. State Department, that will be ridiculous and will show “their weakness and that they have no other explanation”.
Long live healthy criticism
V. Oskanyan also responded to the Republicans’ criticisms/accusations. Let us recall that recently deputy leader of the Republican Party and Chairman of the National Assembly of Armenia Tigran Torosyan and National Assembly Deputy Armen Ashotyan had alluded on different occasions that Vardan Oskanyan is recently more involved in internal affairs which is the reason why Armenia is not doing so well in foreign affairs. The issue mainly referred to the recent report prepared by the U.S. State Department. Oskanyan mentioned that he doesn’t accept what the Republicans say as accusations.
“Criticism is a good thing. This is very healthy criticism. Such phenomena must be appreciated and encouraged as long as they don’t offend anyone personally. I not only accept based criticism, but also prefer it. I think that it is beneficial and I learn a lot from that. But of course, it has to be backed by evidence and not serve purposes,” said Oskanyan and also hinted. Were the criticisms of the Republicans backed by evidence?
“I don’t know. In what context were they made? What did they say? There are errors in all courses, but we must give the evaluation of what we have, what we have preserved and what we have lost. We can only judge the evaluation with end results and not judge based on political aims,” mentioned Oskanyan and added: “The evaluation of any political force, especially these days before the elections and after, will be subjective and there is no doubt about that”.
Oskanyan also noted that he would not like to say that that line stated in the U.S. State Department report “was written on purpose to intrigue us”, but according to him, there may be cases when they intrigue us so much that we won’t be able to save ourselves, if we don’t conduct normal elections. So, according to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, we must pinpoint the ones to blame correctly.
“The elections are really going to be fatal,” he added. According to Oskanyan, all that Armenia has acquired as a result of the military operations during the past ten years has been preserved.
“Each document that has been presented up to 1998 has started with the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. That all changed after 1998 and step by step we have come up to the point when the right of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to be autonomous through the means of referendum is the main point in the document. In 1996, we could only dream about this. On the one hand, we have the military achievements and on the other hand we have such a diplomatic achievement. Now, will you say that we have failed, or we actually have some accomplishments? I leave it up to you to decide,” announced Oskanyan.
Here the minister doesn’t present the real picture. In the so-called “Phased Version” document presented to the conflicting sides by the OSCE Minsk Group in 1997, which has been published a long time ago, there was nothing said about the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and the affirmation of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh was being postponed for an uncertain time. The “Total State” document presented after the change of power in 1998 stated that Nagorno-Karabakh is a part of Azerbaijan (“Nagorno-Karabakh forms a general state along with Azerbaijan in the internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan”). Until 1998, Nagorno-Karabakh was a legal side of the negotiations. During the past couple of years, Armenia has been accused of implementing “ethnic cleansing in the territories of Azerbaijan” (Atkinson’s report). In November 1999, Robert Kocharyan signed the OSCE Istanbul Charter in Istanbul with which Armenia agreed that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict would be settled by keeping the preservation of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity (in fact, the first president of Armenia cancelled the approval of such a document in Lisbon in 1996 by a veto). It is excessive to note that before the period stated by Oskanyan, Armenia has not been considered an occupant, aggressor or ethnic-cleanser in any document. Now, you be the judge: did we fail, or did we actually have achievements? We leave it up to V. Oskanyan.
P.S. As of Wednesday, the State Department had not corrected the “evident error”.