During the seventh summit of the OSCE, which took place in Astana, a statement was on regulation of the conflict of Karabakh was adopted.
RA president Serzh Sargsyan signed under a document, as a result of which in fact he adopts the principles of Madrid. From the prospective of the conflict settlement this is a very important and decisive fact. Of course this was not done directly, but this is the Armenian’s president’s first signature to adopt the principles of Madrid. By the way, the president of Azerbaijan has adopted the principles of Madrid as well. The announcement posted in the OSCE’s site writes: “The president of Armenia and Azerbaijan have reaffirmed their commitment to reach a final agreement on the issue of Karabakh conflict settlement basing on the international norms and principles, the UN charter, Helsinki concluding act, as well as the statements adopted by the presidents o the USA, Russia and France on July 10, 2009, and June 26, 2010.” To note, the announcement of the presidents made on July 10, 2009, discovered the 6 principles of Madrid, the first one of which is the return of the territories surrounding Karabakh to Azerbaijan. The second one is the provision concerning giving an interim status to Karabakh, and the third provision concerns the corridor to connect Armenia with Karabakh. The provision on deciding the final status of Karabakh is set forth in the fourth point. After the solution of these four issues, the refugees shall return to their places of living, where international peacekeeping forces shall provide security for them. Of course the document evolving the principles of Madrid is not limited with these six points, but in Astana Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev indirectly announced that they agree with the above mentioned provisions.
Since 2006 Armenia and Azerbaijan have been escaping from giving a written approval to the mentioned principles. The international community has not been able to convince the countries to give their approval during the past four years. However, there have been verbal announcements that Armenia has agreed with those principles and Azerbaijan has agreed with the renewed principles.
By the way, this announcement was signed by representatives of five countries such as the OSCE Minsk Group countries, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The previous announcements have been mainly trilateral. The announcement made by these five parties also writes that it is time to take more decisive steps to settle the conflict of Karabakh. In the announcement there is also a reference to the announcements of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in Astrakhan on November 2, 2008, and October 27, 2010. They have agreed that the peaceful settlement through negotiations will bring peace and stability to the people of the region and will be the only opportunity to reach agreement between them. “The three MG countries expressed support to the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to reach a decision on peaceful settlement of the conflict on their part. They called on the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to double efforts to focus on the issues, which have not been agreed yet in the main principles. They instructed their co-chairmen to continue the work with the conflicting parties to support their efforts. For the purpose of creating a better environment for the negotiations they petitioned to take extra measures to maintain ceasefire and strengthen the trust in all sectors,” writes the announcement.
The formulation of the announcement concerning the peaceful settlement of the conflict makes it clear that the mediators have not been able to fully neutralize the danger of possible war. The danger, of course, comes out from Azerbaijan. Ilham Aliyev has joined the statement approving the essence of the settlement of the issue promptly, but the formulation about peaceful settlement has been given by the co-chairmen without him being there. In addition, the planned meeting between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan did not take place in Astana. The media writes that Ilham Aliyev has refused to meet with Serzh Sargsyan and Medvedev as he failed to “find an explanation why the announcement signed by the five parties and his speech at the summit were so different.” They also report that the co-chairmen that were to organize the meeting of the presidents were confused. The president of Azerbaijan made a speech at the summit and “accused Armenia in war crimes and genocides” alleging that “by organizing military trainings in the “occupied” lands and changing the names of villages and cities and illegally populating those areas is trying to cast shadow on the peaceful negotiation process”. Serzh Sargsyan’s speech was planned for the next day.