Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Nagorno-Karabakh Should Be Recognized Only Within Its De Facto Exist

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Nagorno-Karabakh Should Be Recognized Only Within Its De Facto Exist

    NAGORNO-KARABAKH SHOULD BE RECOGNIZED ONLY WITHIN ITS DE FACTO EXISTING BORDERS
    David Stepanyan

    ArmInfo
    2010-07-19 12:22:00

    Interview with Russian political expert, professor, Director of the
    Institute for Political and Social Studies of Black Sea-Caspian region
    Vladimir Zakharov

    Mr.Zakharov, what do you think about the Nagorno-Karabakh problem
    and is the settlement of this conflict possible?

    Despite the fact that the Nagorno Karabakh issue was not mentioned
    in the very beginning of the Armenian-Turkish negotiating process
    and was left as a final titbit, it was clear then that Turkey would
    raise it sooner or later.

    And the fact that Azerbaijanis destroyed the Turkish flags in Baku
    against the background of a so-called thaw in Armenian-Turkish
    relations was nothing more than a game in the spirit of Azerbaijanis.

    They in Baku thought that Turkey will force the Armenian authorities
    to make concessions in the Karabakh issue via arm-twisting, having
    opened the border, while everybody in Armenia perfectly understands
    that it is impossible to make the Karabakh people to yield their land.

    Therefore, neither the Armenian nor the NKR authorities will
    give ground. The situation is currently unresolvable in view of
    this. One thing is required for its resolution - to recognize the
    NKR independence.

    However, a question will appear once again - what about the territories
    around Karabakh? The answer to this question is simple - nohow. The
    so-called "occupied territories" were taken by Karabakh people during
    the retaliatory actions in response to the Azerbaijani aggression,
    therefore, they should not be returned. The territories are a belt
    of security around the NKR, a belt which gives many preferences and
    saves the NKR territory from unexpected invasion.

    Azerbaijan claims back not only the territories but whole of
    Nagorno-Karabakh.

    The Azeris' claiming back their territories and the whole of
    Nagorno-Karabakh and their arms rattling behavior are just their
    wishes.

    The Armenian side should not forget that it is dealing with a very
    well armed enemy. The ideological motivation of the Azeri army is
    quite a different question but there are lots of Turkish, Ukrainian,
    Moldavian, Estonia and other contractors who will not fight the way
    the Azeris did.

    In contrast with the Azeri petrodollars, Nagorno-Karabakh should
    uplift the spirit of its army. I know that they do it quite well but
    sometimes they slip up like they did last time when four Armenian
    soldiers were killed as a result of an Azeri sabotage attack.

    What is Aliyev aiming at, after all?

    After failing to agree with Serzh Sargsyan in St.Petersburg, Ilham
    Aliyev hoped that a sabotage attack against Nagorno-Karabakh would
    help him to change the situation.

    It is very good that, after rebuffing the attack, the Nagorno-Karabakh
    troops stayed exactly where they were. Had they advanced towards the
    Azeri positions, there would have been a new war, and it would be very
    hard to prove later that it was the Azeris who started the first. So,
    it was an elementary provocation.

    They in the United States and Russia perfectly understood that and
    one of the goals of Dmitry Medvedev's visit to Washington was to
    discuss this situation.

    The Russian translation of the document signed in Washington was
    a bit different from the original version: in the Russian text the
    word "occupation" was omitted. This demonstrates the United States'
    actual intentions with respect to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. The
    Americans do not care for the fate of the Nagorno-Karabakh people and
    its wish to part with Azerbaijan forever. America is showing that it
    has just one solution - to establish peace but to do it according to
    Azerbaijan's scenario.

    What interests is Russia pushing by means of the Nagorno-Karabakh
    conflict?

    They in Russia must understand that the Nagorno-Karabakh people
    has never occupied other's territories and that the settlement of
    the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is crucial for peace and stability in
    the region.

    What the Soviet regime did - when the Bolsheviks tore the Russian
    imperial land into pieces and gave them out randomly to newly born
    republics - must not recur. The decision to give Nagorno-Karabakh
    to Azerbaijan was passed by a structure that has no such authority -
    the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist
    Party. Similar things happened in Transdniestria, Abkhazia and South
    Ossetia.

    It is very important that Nagorno-Karabakh seceded from the Soviet
    Union legally, according to the Soviet laws, following a referendum.

    Azerbaijan didn't hold a referendum when splitting from the USSR. It
    proclaimed its independence without specifying its borders as it
    renounced its legal succession to the Azeri SSR.

    What do we mean by compromise in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process?

    If the Armenian party to the conflict intends to make some compromise,
    it can be any compromise, but not territorial. The situation is
    very complicated today, and in this situation Karabakh people will
    hardly understand why they should return the lands they liberated at
    a high price in blood. Historically, all these regions were the former
    territory of Karabakh, i.e. the Autonomous Region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

    Therefore, it is not clear for me what the parties will exchange,
    and what for they will do it? For the Karabakh lands? As regards the
    formula "status in exchange for territories, it also seems inefficient
    to me, Karabakh should be recognized within its existing borders.

    Is Nagorno-Karabakh actually so different from Kosovo, Abkhazia or
    South Ossetia that they do not want to recognize it?

    By recognizing Kosovo, the West - more specifically, the United States
    with the connivance of the UN - has bypassed all international laws
    as the Kosovar Albanians have captured other's territory by a very
    simple method - demographic growth.

    By recognizing Kosovo the Americans sought to destroy the Yalta-Potsdam
    agreements and to start redividing the world. They were planning to
    recognize Iraqi Kurdistan as well but Turkey rebelled and the plan
    was put off.

    As regards Nagorno-Karabakh, the key reason why the West is trying to
    solve this problem is that Nagorno-Karabakh neighbors on Iran. The
    United States wants to place this territory under its control as it
    is going to invade Iran in late 2012-early 2013.

    The situation over Nagorno-Karabakh is somewhat ambiguous: the United
    States has told Azerbaijan that it will recognize Nagorno-Karabakh
    should the Azeris start a new war. This serves Washington's interests
    as by making such statements it keeps the situation under control. So,
    I can say that the United States is interested in Nagorno-Karabakh,
    and one of the reasons is that Stepanakert has an airport.

    The Americans would very much like to see Nagorno-Karabakh as part of
    Azerbaijan as this would give them free hand to place there whatever
    they like. But, since the Nagorno-Karabakh people will never allow
    this, they are trying to come to terms.

    The only reason why Hillary Clinton came to Armenia and Azerbaijan
    was to convince them to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh problem as quickly
    as possible. Today, everybody wants to see this problem resolved but
    nobody knows how to do it. The Azeris keep refusing to recognize
    Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state. They just promise some
    autonomy but I don't think that they will keep their promise. In their
    turn, the Nagorno-Karabakh people say that they will never agree to
    Azerbaijan's rule.

    I have been there and I have seen that they will rather die than give
    up as they have already experienced the "delight" of being part of
    Azerbaijan. In this light, all attempts of the West and Turkey to
    speed up the peace process are doomed to failure.

    What is then preventing Russia from recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh?

    The indecision of the Russian political elite is the key obstacle
    preventing Russia from recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh.

    But this is not the only reason. They in Russia simply fail to
    understand what Nagorno-Karabakh is and who it belongs to. The Azeris
    have a very strong lobby in Russia and they keep persuading Russian
    politicians and experts that Nagorno-Karabakh is an Azeri territory,
    which has allegedly belonged to Azerbaijan since the ancient times.

    The Azeris keep claiming that they are an indigenous Caucasian ethnos
    while the Armenians have come there as late as XV. Some of them even
    say that the Armenians were brought to the Caucasus by Griboyedov in
    1828. One of the last statements by Azeri President Ilham Aliyev that
    Erivan (Yerevan) was granted to Armenians by Azeris in 1918 has become
    a historical nonsense. Regretfully, these incompetent anti-scientific
    statements have become a proven historical fact for some hired Russian
    experts. Hard as we try we are unable to explain to our leadership
    the true essence of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem. The presidential
    administration is ordering quite different subjects for Armenian
    studies, which proves that our officials are not very much competent.




    From: A. Papazian
Working...
X