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MATTHEW BRYZA: I FELT THAT WILLINGNESS TO RECONCILE A BIT MORE THIS TIME THAN I HAD IN THE PAST - EXCLUSIVE
Azeri Press Agency
Jan 25 2008
Azerbaijan
American co-chair regards the recent report of International Crisis
Group on Nagorno Karabakh conflict as speculative
American co-chair of OSCE Minsk Group Matthew Bryza's interview to APA
-What were your impressions of the recent visit to the region, as
one of the co-chairs of OSCE Minsk Group? What is attitude of the
presidents to the Madrid plan? Could we make one step forward in the
negotiations process?
- I think that we did made one step forward during visiting Baku,
Yerevan and Khankendi. We were successful in convincing the idea
that the presidents said that they need to continue the negotiations
on this Madrid paper right through the elections for Armenia's next
president. Before we begin the ship we were concerned whether or not
this paper will survive, whether or not the new president of Armenia
will want to begin the whole process from scratch. But I can say now
that all leading candidates for the president of Armenia will wish
to continue the negations on the basic principles paper. That is good
news. The nature of discussion with two presidents, president Aliyev
and president Kocharyan was to hear their reaction to this paper that
we submitted in Madrid and to address whatever concern they may have
with regard to slightly new formulations of various concepts in the
basic principles paper. And that we did. We respect those views. In
some cases, the two presidents have very similar concerns. And now
we will make some minor changes in the paper to reflect the concerns
of the presidents. The process continues. For the last three years,
we have been negotiating on the basic principles of co-chairs. Before
the Madrid ministerial meeting of OSCE, we co-chairs improved the paper
that had been the result for the negotiations process for couple of
years. We made it a bit sharper; we streamlined language and some
cases that led to changes in the phrasing that presidents did not
fully understand and so had to explain those.
- How many components does this plan have? Does it include the
referendum in Nagorno Karabakh, deployment of international
peacekeeping forces, replacement of refuges, etc?
- The basic principles have been divulged in the past. I discussed
them a couple of years ago in June of 2006, the International Crisis
Group also just published a report which talked about the basic
principles. So people know what those concepts are. I would rather
not comment on specifics of the Madrid documents except to say that
it is the document which defines the basic principles. And there
is one more point. Nobody has agreed on any of the individual basic
principles without anticipating that it will be a package agreement.
In the other words, no single element of the basic principles is
agreed until all of the basic principles are agreed between the
parties. So it would not be accurate to say that for example, that
one side is agreed to redeploy its forces, other side is agreed to
referendum. Nothing is agreed till everything is agreed.
- You visited the line of contact for the first time. What are your
impressions?
- I knew what you expect in Aghdam. But as human being it is impossible
to appreciate the human cost something like Aghdam until you see it
with your own eyes. President Aliyev himself described that view when
he the next day was in the other side of the line of contact looking
into Aghdam with binoculars. It is powerful and tragic to see so many
building destroyed. The good news is that when we spoke to the defector
leaders in Khankendi there is also appreciation for the horrible human
cost of the conflict and desire to avoid ever having to go through
this again and real desire to reconcile with their neighbors across
the line of contact. I felt that willingness to reconcile a bit more
this time that I had in the past. This trip to the line of contact
through Aghdam enforced like no book or picture, I can ever see or
read, reinforced my own mine about the terrible human consequences of
this conflict and we have to do everything possible to make sure that
all injustices are rectify and there is never such conflict. There
is a lot of very aggressive rhetoric comes from the leadership of
the government of Azerbaijan.
But I interpret this rhetoric as basically saying we plan to and
trying to negotiate a peaceful settlement and the same time we
will use all our leverage possible to negotiate the best settlement
possible. So I feel the desire in both sides to reconcile and to reach
the agreement. That said there is a lot of anger, a lot of negative
emotions still out there as well, which I feel quite powerfully. I
think the president Aliyev recognizes that the absence of settlement
increase the chances of resumption of the conflict. But I see that
both sides are committed to the peaceful solution of the conflict. I
would say it is very important for both sides to avoid rhetoric that
is humiliating to the other side.
- International Crisis Group stated that war may start in 2012 again.
What is your opinion of this statement? Do you believe in the real
threat of war?
- I actually believe that this part of report was based on lack of
familiarity with the facts. It is simply not accurate to say that after
2012 Azerbaijan's oil revenues will decrease. Whoever wrote this part
of report is unaware of the fact that at this point, around 2012-2015
Azerbaijani natural gas production will expand dramatically and energy
revenues will remain high. So I think that it is misjudgment. I don't
understand why even it works through that energy revenues will decrease
after 2012, why it will led to escalation of the conflict. It seems
to me very speculative conclusion and it doesn't hold up. And at
this case that conclusion is not fact because energy revenues will
increase after 2012.
- 2008 is not only the year of presidential elections in Armenia
and Azerbaijan, but also in the USA. Some of the U.S. presidential
candidates clearly say that they will recognize the so called Armenian
genocide. Do you believe that such statements may damage US-Turkey
relations?
- I believe that our policy under the president Bush is what it is. I
can only speak for that policy. I have no idea what the policy of the
next president will be with regard to Turkey and events of 1915. What
I can say is that the event of 1915 was enormous tragedy and they
resulted in a horrible human suffering and we pray that such suffering
will never return. But we believe that there should not be a political
decision taking in the basis of the vote in anyone's parliament over
how to describe those events of enormous human significance. So that is
our policy. I would hope that our relations, relations of Turkey and
the USA are based on such strongly shared values and shared interests
that any president will continue the strong path of cooperation that
characterizes the U.S.-Turkey relations and which we work hard to
establish.
Azeri Press Agency
Jan 25 2008
Azerbaijan
American co-chair regards the recent report of International Crisis
Group on Nagorno Karabakh conflict as speculative
American co-chair of OSCE Minsk Group Matthew Bryza's interview to APA
-What were your impressions of the recent visit to the region, as
one of the co-chairs of OSCE Minsk Group? What is attitude of the
presidents to the Madrid plan? Could we make one step forward in the
negotiations process?
- I think that we did made one step forward during visiting Baku,
Yerevan and Khankendi. We were successful in convincing the idea
that the presidents said that they need to continue the negotiations
on this Madrid paper right through the elections for Armenia's next
president. Before we begin the ship we were concerned whether or not
this paper will survive, whether or not the new president of Armenia
will want to begin the whole process from scratch. But I can say now
that all leading candidates for the president of Armenia will wish
to continue the negations on the basic principles paper. That is good
news. The nature of discussion with two presidents, president Aliyev
and president Kocharyan was to hear their reaction to this paper that
we submitted in Madrid and to address whatever concern they may have
with regard to slightly new formulations of various concepts in the
basic principles paper. And that we did. We respect those views. In
some cases, the two presidents have very similar concerns. And now
we will make some minor changes in the paper to reflect the concerns
of the presidents. The process continues. For the last three years,
we have been negotiating on the basic principles of co-chairs. Before
the Madrid ministerial meeting of OSCE, we co-chairs improved the paper
that had been the result for the negotiations process for couple of
years. We made it a bit sharper; we streamlined language and some
cases that led to changes in the phrasing that presidents did not
fully understand and so had to explain those.
- How many components does this plan have? Does it include the
referendum in Nagorno Karabakh, deployment of international
peacekeeping forces, replacement of refuges, etc?
- The basic principles have been divulged in the past. I discussed
them a couple of years ago in June of 2006, the International Crisis
Group also just published a report which talked about the basic
principles. So people know what those concepts are. I would rather
not comment on specifics of the Madrid documents except to say that
it is the document which defines the basic principles. And there
is one more point. Nobody has agreed on any of the individual basic
principles without anticipating that it will be a package agreement.
In the other words, no single element of the basic principles is
agreed until all of the basic principles are agreed between the
parties. So it would not be accurate to say that for example, that
one side is agreed to redeploy its forces, other side is agreed to
referendum. Nothing is agreed till everything is agreed.
- You visited the line of contact for the first time. What are your
impressions?
- I knew what you expect in Aghdam. But as human being it is impossible
to appreciate the human cost something like Aghdam until you see it
with your own eyes. President Aliyev himself described that view when
he the next day was in the other side of the line of contact looking
into Aghdam with binoculars. It is powerful and tragic to see so many
building destroyed. The good news is that when we spoke to the defector
leaders in Khankendi there is also appreciation for the horrible human
cost of the conflict and desire to avoid ever having to go through
this again and real desire to reconcile with their neighbors across
the line of contact. I felt that willingness to reconcile a bit more
this time that I had in the past. This trip to the line of contact
through Aghdam enforced like no book or picture, I can ever see or
read, reinforced my own mine about the terrible human consequences of
this conflict and we have to do everything possible to make sure that
all injustices are rectify and there is never such conflict. There
is a lot of very aggressive rhetoric comes from the leadership of
the government of Azerbaijan.
But I interpret this rhetoric as basically saying we plan to and
trying to negotiate a peaceful settlement and the same time we
will use all our leverage possible to negotiate the best settlement
possible. So I feel the desire in both sides to reconcile and to reach
the agreement. That said there is a lot of anger, a lot of negative
emotions still out there as well, which I feel quite powerfully. I
think the president Aliyev recognizes that the absence of settlement
increase the chances of resumption of the conflict. But I see that
both sides are committed to the peaceful solution of the conflict. I
would say it is very important for both sides to avoid rhetoric that
is humiliating to the other side.
- International Crisis Group stated that war may start in 2012 again.
What is your opinion of this statement? Do you believe in the real
threat of war?
- I actually believe that this part of report was based on lack of
familiarity with the facts. It is simply not accurate to say that after
2012 Azerbaijan's oil revenues will decrease. Whoever wrote this part
of report is unaware of the fact that at this point, around 2012-2015
Azerbaijani natural gas production will expand dramatically and energy
revenues will remain high. So I think that it is misjudgment. I don't
understand why even it works through that energy revenues will decrease
after 2012, why it will led to escalation of the conflict. It seems
to me very speculative conclusion and it doesn't hold up. And at
this case that conclusion is not fact because energy revenues will
increase after 2012.
- 2008 is not only the year of presidential elections in Armenia
and Azerbaijan, but also in the USA. Some of the U.S. presidential
candidates clearly say that they will recognize the so called Armenian
genocide. Do you believe that such statements may damage US-Turkey
relations?
- I believe that our policy under the president Bush is what it is. I
can only speak for that policy. I have no idea what the policy of the
next president will be with regard to Turkey and events of 1915. What
I can say is that the event of 1915 was enormous tragedy and they
resulted in a horrible human suffering and we pray that such suffering
will never return. But we believe that there should not be a political
decision taking in the basis of the vote in anyone's parliament over
how to describe those events of enormous human significance. So that is
our policy. I would hope that our relations, relations of Turkey and
the USA are based on such strongly shared values and shared interests
that any president will continue the strong path of cooperation that
characterizes the U.S.-Turkey relations and which we work hard to
establish.