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Think Calmly About Ceding Karabakh?

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  • Think Calmly About Ceding Karabakh?

    THINK CALMLY ABOUT CEDING KARABAKH?

    168 Zham
    Nov 11 2008
    Armenia

    "Facts demonstrate that the only aim of [former President] Robert
    Kocharyan and [incumbent President] Serzh Sargsyan is not Karabakh,
    but remaining in power," the leader of the opposition Hnchak Social
    Democratic Party of Armenia [HSDPA], Lyudmila Sargsyan, said at a news
    conference yesterday [10 November]. The latter recalled how Kocharyan
    and Sargsyan announced during the [February] presidential election
    that if he came to power [former President] Levon Ter-Petrosyan
    would cede Karabakh, and that they were the ones who would keep
    Karabakh. Lyudmila Sargsyan said that the opposition understood well
    at the time of the election that the country should have a legitimate
    president in order to achieve a decision on the Karabakh issue that
    would benefit the Armenians, "however the government did not want to
    realize what results the rigged election could have".

    "Now they have run out of their arguments and will go for concessions,"
    Lyudmila Sargsyan said yesterday, adding that this is the reason under
    the circumstances the opposition is "reserved so that Armenia appears
    in the most favourable light and the issue does not end in loosing the
    seven districts [the currently Armenian-controlled districts around
    Nagornyy Karabakh]". "We should try to keep what we gained with blood,
    at any cost," she said.

    A former deputy minister of national security, Gurgen Yeghiazaryan,
    said that with the signing of the 2 November declaration on the
    Karabakh settlement by the Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian presidents
    in Moscow, Nagornyy Karabakh had been pushed out of the negotiations
    as an independent party to the conflict. "International organizations
    described the [19 February] presidential election, accompanied with
    beating and violence, as 'a step forward', because they had something
    to receive, and they are getting it now," Yeghiazaryan said, adding:
    "Only the people of Karabakh should settle the Karabakh issue -
    neither Serzh Sargsyan nor Robert Kocharyan." Yeghiazaryan answered
    positively to the question whether suspension of opposition rallies is
    acceptable under these conditions, saying "we gave [the government]
    time to think calmly and to act, but we will not be observing calmly
    how Karabakh is being ceded".

    A member of the HSDPA and former deputy defence minister, Vahan
    Shirkhanyan, said at the same news conference that if there is an
    attempt to settle the Karabakh issue in line with the currently
    existing proposals, "it means that the international community
    plants a mine in the Caucasus and it can explode any moment, which
    this community wants it to". Speaking about the "Madrid principles"
    Shirkhanyan said it is unclear what concessions are being discussed -
    land in return for land, road in return for road, or money in return
    for money?

    Shirkhanyan said that conversations about peacekeepers are unacceptable
    as well under these conditions. He said that peacekeepers would be
    representing different countries and each of them would be pursuing
    their national interests on the Armenian-Azerbaijani contact line. The
    former deputy defence minister said that an option regarding
    peacekeepers was discussed in 1998, according to which the major
    part of them would be a Turkish unit. According to Shirkhanyan,
    this option is being discussed up to present.
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