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A PROPOSAL TO THE PRESIDENT: ASK ILHAM [RAMIL] ALIYEV A QUESTION
Mediamax
Sept 11 2012
Armenia
Ara Tadevosyan
Director of Mediamax
A week ago, the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev granted pardon
to murderer Ramil Safarov. The discussions about how it will affect
the NK negotiation process and what changes official Yerevan should
make in its position have not stopped since then.
For example, former FM Vardan Oskanyan thinks that it is a
convenient time to change the accents and focus attention on fixing
the de-facto realization of Nagorno Karabakhi people's right for
self-determination. Mr. Oskanyan did not explain whether it should
be done through the recognition of NKR by Armenia or in any other way.
For his part, Foreign Minister Nalbandyan said this week that Armenia
is not going to withdraw from the talks and it's is Azerbaijan that
rejects all the proposals of the Co-Chair states.
In reality, the negotiation process has been actually frozen for
almost over a year. After the Azerbaijani leader had denied the
previously reached agreements in Kazan last summer, the Co-chairs do
not mediate actively, focusing on efforts to maintain the process in
a more or less "vivid" state. There were no big hopes for progress
even before Safarov's release and today only the hopeless optimists
can speak about such hopes.
Yesterday, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan reproached the
international community, saying that one of the reasons for Safarov's
release was the fact that the world has been demonstrating "political
correctness" towards Azerbaijan for many years and always puts an
equality sign between the sides.
Since the hopes that the international players will ever give up that
"political correctness" are not big, I would like to propose to the
Armenian President to do it himself. How?
Armenia should initiate a Sargsyan-Aliyev meeting through the Co-Chairs
of the OSCE Minsk Group. The first 1-2 minutes of such meetings are
open for the reporters for protocol shooting. Usually, during this
time the Presidents and the mediators exchange polite smiles and say
nothing but: "how are you?", "it's a nice weather today" etc.
I propose to the President of Armenia to break this tradition and
ask a question to Ilham Aliyev just during the protocol shooting:
- Mr. President, how do you sleep after granting pardon to a murderer
who had axed a sleeping man 16 times?
And let Mr. Ilham [Ramil] Aliyev answer this question before the
cameras.
Mediamax
Sept 11 2012
Armenia
Ara Tadevosyan
Director of Mediamax
A week ago, the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev granted pardon
to murderer Ramil Safarov. The discussions about how it will affect
the NK negotiation process and what changes official Yerevan should
make in its position have not stopped since then.
For example, former FM Vardan Oskanyan thinks that it is a
convenient time to change the accents and focus attention on fixing
the de-facto realization of Nagorno Karabakhi people's right for
self-determination. Mr. Oskanyan did not explain whether it should
be done through the recognition of NKR by Armenia or in any other way.
For his part, Foreign Minister Nalbandyan said this week that Armenia
is not going to withdraw from the talks and it's is Azerbaijan that
rejects all the proposals of the Co-Chair states.
In reality, the negotiation process has been actually frozen for
almost over a year. After the Azerbaijani leader had denied the
previously reached agreements in Kazan last summer, the Co-chairs do
not mediate actively, focusing on efforts to maintain the process in
a more or less "vivid" state. There were no big hopes for progress
even before Safarov's release and today only the hopeless optimists
can speak about such hopes.
Yesterday, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan reproached the
international community, saying that one of the reasons for Safarov's
release was the fact that the world has been demonstrating "political
correctness" towards Azerbaijan for many years and always puts an
equality sign between the sides.
Since the hopes that the international players will ever give up that
"political correctness" are not big, I would like to propose to the
Armenian President to do it himself. How?
Armenia should initiate a Sargsyan-Aliyev meeting through the Co-Chairs
of the OSCE Minsk Group. The first 1-2 minutes of such meetings are
open for the reporters for protocol shooting. Usually, during this
time the Presidents and the mediators exchange polite smiles and say
nothing but: "how are you?", "it's a nice weather today" etc.
I propose to the President of Armenia to break this tradition and
ask a question to Ilham Aliyev just during the protocol shooting:
- Mr. President, how do you sleep after granting pardon to a murderer
who had axed a sleeping man 16 times?
And let Mr. Ilham [Ramil] Aliyev answer this question before the
cameras.