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They Let Nagorno-Karabakh Negotiate

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  • They Let Nagorno-Karabakh Negotiate

    THEY LET NAGORNO-KARABAKH NEGOTIATE
    by by Aliya Samigullina and Ilya Azar

    Gazeta.ru
    Jan 25 2010
    Russia

    It is possible that Nagorno-Karabakh will participate in talks on
    the status of the unrecognized republic. This is the result of a
    meeting of the presidents of Russia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. If
    Nagorno-Karabakh's involvement in the talks does not prove to be just
    a formality, this will lead to a breakthrough in relations between
    Yerevan, Baku, and Stepanakert, experts believe.

    A routine tripartite meeting of Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev,
    Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, and Armenian President Serzh
    Sargsyan devoted to Nagorno-Karabakh took place in Sochi Monday [
    25 January]. After the talks Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
    declared that Yerevan and Baku will prepare their proposals and
    additions to the updated basic principles of a settlement of the
    Nagorno-Karabakh conflict (the "Madrid principles").

    Lavrov elaborated that "there is a general understanding on the
    preamble to this document." "The chief result today was an accord that,
    although there are some parts of the document that are not yet the
    object of agreement among the sides, the sides will prepare their
    own specific ideas relating to these parts and their own specific
    wordings which will be added to this text," the minister said.

    "Everyone deemed it useful that such a document exists, because
    it makes it possible to hold a discussion not in the abstract but
    in connection with specific wordings," he added. But he did not go
    into details.

    A source close to the negotiating process told Interfax that this
    preamble records "the need for Nagorno-Karabakh to participate in
    the subsequent stages of the talks, as well as the rights of nations
    to self-determination."

    The "Madrid principles" were adopted at the OSCE summit in 2007, and
    to all intents and purposes the talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia
    are taking place on the basis of them. According to this document,
    it is proposed to return the territories around Nagorno-Karabakh
    to Azerbaijan's control and to grant the region a temporary status
    providing for guarantees of security and autonomy. The document
    also stipulates the creation of a corridor between Armenia and
    Nagorno-Karabakh, the future determination of the unrecognized
    republic's definitive juridical status within the framework of a
    vote, the right of all refugees and displaced persons to return home,
    and international guarantees of security, including a peacekeeping
    operation.

    This is already the fifth meeting in the tripartite format. The first
    was held in November 2008, when a declaration by the three presidents
    was signed, confirming the goal of a political settlement of the
    conflict on the basis of international law and with the intermediary
    participation of the Minsk Group of the OSCE, and particularly its
    co-chairmen -Russia, the United States, and France. Then, too, the
    decision was adopted to activate the talks process. On the eve of the
    Sochi meeting Sargsyan made a trip to Moscow, while Sergey Naryshkin,
    head of the Russian Presidential Staff, visited Baku.

    Goran Lennmarker, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly's special
    representative for the conflicts in Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh,
    has assumed that the sides may reach a settlement this spring. This
    was how he commented on the talks in Sochi. In an interview with the
    Azerbaijani APA Agency he reported that "the sides are coming closer,
    and the conclusion of an agreement on the conflict may become possible
    this spring."

    In the opinion of Aleksey Vlasov, general director of the Centre for
    the Study of Political Processes in the CIS at Moscow State University,
    everything depends on what meaning is invested in Stepanakert's
    involvement in the talks. "It is one thing if the sides simply listen
    to Stepanakert's position, and quite another thing if Nagorno-Karabakh
    becomes a participant in the talks with equal rights.

    This will mean a complete reformatting of Baku's position," Vlasov
    told Gazeta.ru.

    Such a sharp turn of events gives rise to doubts in the expert: "In
    recent weeks no statements by Azerbaijani officials have presaged
    anything of the sort. Unless Yerevan offered Baku, in exchange for
    this, specific dates for a troop withdrawal from the five regions of
    Azerbaijan that Baku regards as having been occupied by Armenia."

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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