On March 14 the UN General Assembly adopted a document concerning the Karabakh conflict. The mentioned document is totally against Armenia.
Even the title is very negative. The mentioned document is entitled as “The situation in the Azeri occupied territories” and writes the following: “The existing military conflict in the territory and surrounding areas of Karabakh of the Republic of Azerbaijan undermines the international security and peace”. By this document the UN General Assembly recognizes the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan one more time in the limits recognized internationally. The UN General Assembly also petitions in this document to take the Armenian military forces out of those territories fully and immediately. There are other such strong definitions in the document as well. Specifically it writes that “No UN member country should recognize the existing situation in Karabakh as legal and should not undertake any steps supporting the continuation and stabilization of that situation”. The document also approves “the incontestable rights of the refugees from the Azeri territories to return to the occupied territories”. In parallel with that it is mentioned in the document adopted by the UN member countries that the organization accepts “the necessity to create equal conditions for the Armenian and Azeri communities of Karabakh”. The document was adopted by 39 votes for, 7 – against and 100 abstained votes. Representatives of 46 UN member countries did not participate in the voting. Former OSCE MG member from this organization Vladimir Kazimirov has said to the Vremya Novostey newspaper that in fact the majority of the UN member countries preferred not to deal with that bill. Armenia and three OSCE MG countries (The US, Russia and France) have voted against the bill. India, Angola and Vanuatu island, which is in Oceania, have voted against the bill as well. Before the voting during the Assembly’s session two OSCE MG countries, the US and France, came up with speeches against the bill developed by the representatives of Azerbaijan. Member of the US delegation Alejandro Wolf came up with a speech in the name of the Minsk Group co-chairmen and said that only a part of the MG co-chairmen’s recommendations were reflected in the document, due to which the document cannot be considered as balanced. The representative of Armenia to the UN Armen Martirosyan has also emphasized the unilateral character of the document and said that it is an unprecedented thing in the history of the UN when they are trying to adopt a document without organizing discussions and consultations beforehand. “With such action Azerbaijan wants to express its ambitions on a separate piece of paper,” said Mr. Martirosyan and assured that by developing such document Azerbaijan may eventually undermine the process of negotiations. The major part of the countries supporting Azerbaijan’s initiative are members of the Islamic Congress organization (Turkey, some CIS countries such as Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, Uzbekistan). Serbia has voted for the document developed by Azerbaijan as well. Even though the document has been adopted, one may think basing on the reaction of Armenia that nothing serious has happened or all what has happened has been against Azerbaijan. For instance, after the adoption of the bill the RA FM Vardan Oskanyan has expressed hope that the resolution will serve as warning for Azerbaijan since most of the UN member countries have been against the unilateral approach to the issue of Karabakh. Consecutively the foreign affairs ministry released a statement writing that the voting in the UN was like a specific checking of the stances in the UN. “It showed that only 29 UN-member countries advocated the positions of Azerbaijan in case when the OSCE MG co-chair countries were against that initiative. Furthermore, 150 members either abstained or did not participate in the voting generally”. Yesterday the president’s spokesman Viktor Soghomonyan organized a press-conference and said that “the results of the voting for the document proposed by Azerbaijan in the UN will always be in the focus of our attention”. “We are really inspired by the fact that the civilized countries either abstained or did not express any positions to that initiative by understanding that by doing so they will not help the process of negotiations and generally the settlement of the conflict in any manner,” Viktor Soghomonyan said. According to him, the adoption of that document in the UN was not a surprise and there is no need to worry. In contrast, the Azeri deputy FM Araz Azimov assures that the adopted document “is a very important document, which has both legal and political power”. Azimov criticized the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen by saying that they have driven them into a very difficult situation. “Let the co-chairmen not suspect that henceforth the work that will be done with them will be based on the principles adopted by the UN General Assembly. The activities of the Minsk Group should continue basing on yesterday’s resolution of the UN,” he said. The foreign affairs ministry of Russia has come up with a statement as well and stated that Russia is ready to continue the efforts of the Minsk Group co-chairs in cooperation with the US and France being led by the interests of settling the Karabakh conflict principles, which will enable to recover stability and peace in South Caucasus.