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BAKU: Svante E. Cornell: Situation In Nagorno-Karabakh Is In Many Wa

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  • BAKU: Svante E. Cornell: Situation In Nagorno-Karabakh Is In Many Wa

    SVANTE E. CORNELL: SITUATION IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH IS IN MANY WAYS SIMILAR TO THE ONE IN KOSOVO

    Today
    July 27 2010
    Azerbaijan

    Svante E. Cornell, Research Director of the Central Asia-Caucasus
    Institute in Washington DC believes it might be that the International
    Court of Justice ruling about Kosovo's breakaway declaration of
    independence from Serbia has been somewhat misunderstood.

    "There may not be anything illegal in terms of international law in a
    declaration of independence; that would violate the law of the mother
    country, in this case Serbia. But that a declaration of independence
    is not illegal does not mean that it is recognized by the rest of
    the world", Cornell said.

    He mentioned that, judging these issues, one has to take a number of
    things into account. But in case of Nagorno-Karabakh, the situation
    is much different.

    "One is the extent of human rights violations and the changes in
    population structure. In the case of Kosovo, there was ethnic
    cleansing committed against Kosovars by Serbia, which is what
    triggered a multilateral international intervention under NATO. Thus,
    international intervention restored the demographic status before the
    war. In the cases of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh,
    the situation is much different. ...There was massive ethnic cleansing
    committed by the separatist side, especially in the cases of Karabakh
    in 1992-93 and Abkhazia in 1993, as well as in South Ossetia in 2008.

    Thus, these in many ways mirror images of the Kosovo situation,
    strongly weakening the case for independence made by the separatists.

    It is a long-standing principle of international law that it is
    unacceptable to first alter the demographic situation and then make
    political declarations of independence," the expert noted.




    From: A. Papazian
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