Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

An Address To The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • An Address To The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs

    AN ADDRESS TO THE OSCE MINSK GROUP CO-CHAIRS

    15:42 31.03.2014

    ISCE Minsk Group, Nagorno-Karabakh

    The Political Science Association of Armenia in its session of March
    29, 2014, adopted an Address to the Heads of the OSCE Minsk Group
    Co-chairs on the settlement of the Karabakh Conflict in connection
    with the unbecoming to the status of a head of state attacks of
    the Azerbaijani President on the Armenian people and undisguised
    territorial claims to the Republic of Armenia. Because of the danger
    of political behavior of the head of neighboring state to the peace and
    stability in the region on March 31, 2014, the text of the Address has
    been delivered to the Ambassadors Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of
    the States - Permanent Members of the UN Security Council: H.E. Tian
    Changchun (China), H.E. Henri Reynaud (France), H.E. Ivan Volinkin
    (Russia), H.E. Katherine Leach (the UK), H.E. John Heffern (the
    US). The Text of the Address has been also disseminated among all
    International Missions accredited in the Republic of Armenia. Below
    is the full text of the address, presented by the Chairman of the
    Political Science Association of Armenia, Doctor of Political Science
    Hayk Kotanjian.

    "On March 19, 2014, at the nationwide festivities of Nowruz, the
    Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev made a number of groundless
    statements, regarding which the Political Science Association of
    Armenia feels obligated to address the Heads of the OSCE Minsk Group
    Co-Chairs - Honorable Presidents of France, the Russian Federation,
    and the United States of America.

    Judging by the political content, the choice of the date for the
    Azerbaijani "royal" leader's speech was conditioned not only by the
    desire to congratulate his people on the occasion of Nowruz â"~@
    a holiday that dates back to the Iranian culture, but also by the
    intention to use the current international political situation for
    the benefit of the Azerbaijani President's traditional policy of
    torpedoing the process of peace settlement of the Karabakh conflict,
    mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group.

    Along with a bunch of Armenophobic clichés, such as "Armenia
    is a fascist state", an arbitrary interpretation of the norms and
    principles of International law, the concepts of "historical justice"
    and "historical lands", as well as territorial claims to the Republic
    of Armenia, fraught with actual threat of war, the mentioned speech
    contains some other formulations incompatible with the status of a
    head of state.

    The key message of Aliyev's speech is that the territorial integrity
    of a state, Azerbaijan in this case, cannot be violated without the
    state's consent, so the settlement under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk
    Group seeks to "restore" the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and
    return the Azerbaijanis to the "ancient Azerbaijani lands", which,
    in his opinion, include a significant portion of the territory of
    the Republic of Armenia. The Azerbaijani President's militaristic
    interpretation of the right to self-determination, although contradicts
    the Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter, Paragraph 2, Article 1,
    Chapter I, reading: "To develop friendly relations among nations based
    on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination
    of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen
    universal peace", yet fully reflects the essence of his credo.

    The President of our neighboring state, declaring that "the
    international law coupled with the force factor"comes to the forefront
    in the contemporary international relations, distorts the gist of the
    latter. This statement of the head of the neighboring country contains
    a new threat of genocidal acts against the Armenians of the RA and
    NKR, like the massacres committed by the Azerbaijani authorities
    against the Armenian population in Sumgait, Kirovabad (Arm. Gandzak)
    and Baku in 1988-1990. This threat of systemic violence proclaimed
    by the Azerbaijani President is perceived particularly ominous as we
    approach the centenary of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire.

    In his statements, the leader of the neighboring state proceeds from
    the ungrounded premise that the self-determination of Nagorno-Karabakh
    is not legitimate, because the establishment of the Nagorno-Karabakh
    Republic as a product of the referendum of December 10, 1991, carried
    out in compliance with Article 6 of the USSR Law of April 3, 1990, "On
    Procedures for Regulation of Issues Related to Secession of the Union
    Republics from the USSR", was not agreed with the Azerbaijani SSR. The
    reality was that, Azerbaijan, having declared its withdrawal from the
    Soviet state and the Soviet jurisdiction prior to the referendum in
    Nagorno-Karabakh, legislatively fixed the waiver of the necessity to
    coordinate with it the further fate of Nagorno-Karabakh. Moreover,
    on November 26, 1991, in violation of Article 3 of said USSR Law,
    imperatively preserving "the right of peoples of autonomous republics
    and autonomous entities to decide independently whether to remain
    in the USSR or in a seceding union republic, as well as to pose the
    question of the legal status of their state", Azerbaijan adopted
    the law on abolition of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. And
    this despite the fact that, at the decline of the USSR, namely in
    the referendum on preservation of the Soviet Union, held on March
    17, 1991, the vast majority of the Azerbaijani SSR population voted
    for keeping the Soviet Union. The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast
    did not participate in voting. It should be noted, that the Mission
    on the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh of the Conference on Security
    and Cooperation in Europe recognized the Azerbaijan Law of November
    26, 1991, on abolition of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast as
    unconstitutional. In addition, in order to clarify the political and
    historical, political and legal bases of the relationship between
    the equal Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (the Artsakh Republic) and the
    Republic of Azerbaijan, it is important to pay attention to the
    undeniable political and legal fact of Nagorno-Karabakh never being
    a part of independent Azerbaijan.

    In the historically complex period at issue, Nagorno-Karabakh based
    on the principle of equality of peoples under the supervision of
    international observers exercised its right to self-determination
    through the nationwide referendum on December 10, 1991, in full
    compliance with the requirements of international law and pursuant
    to the then-effective Soviet legislation. In addition, the final
    political and legal formalization of the results of the referendum
    under the provisions of the USSR Law "On Procedures for Regulation
    of Issues Related to Secession of the UnionRepublics from the USSR"
    of April 3, 1990, ruled out any coordination with the Azerbaijani SSR
    and the USSR because they had been formally abolished by then. At
    the same time, it is important to note that, by the documents of
    the Commission for Nagorno-Karabakh referendum and in line with the
    letter of the UN Charter, the Azerbaijani minority was granted equal
    rights with the Armenian majority to free expression of will. Despite
    this, the Azerbaijanis of Nagorno-Karabakh, at the directions of Baku
    authorities, had to waive their right to participate in the referendum.

    Thus, the legal self-determination of NKR and the declaration of
    state independence took place within the context of the downfall of
    the single union state and emergence of new nations, including the
    Republic of Azerbaijan.

    Neither well-founded are Ilham Aliyev's attitudes from the perspective
    of the UN International Court of Justice, which, based on Paragraph 2,
    Article 1, Chapter I of the UN Charter, in its Advisory Opinion of July
    22, 2010, announced the following conclusion: "No general prohibition
    against unilateral declarations of independence may be inferred from
    the practice of the Security Council... General international law
    contains no applicable prohibition of declarations of independence".

    In its turn, Ilham Aliyev's comment on stirring up "international
    law coupled with the force factor" gives rise to doubts regarding
    the inadequate perception of the theory and practice of contemporary
    international relations by the Head of State - President of Azerbaijan.

    The philosophy of contemporary international relations implies
    prioritized pursuit of ways for peaceful political resolution of
    issues on the basis of the fundamental principles of international
    law, including the peoples' right to freely determine their own fate
    refraining from the use or threat of force. This is the approach
    the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair Countries adopted in their continued
    efforts to prevent the escalation of the Karabakh conflict and find
    a mutually acceptable peaceful solution to it.

    The Political Science Association of Armenia considers this publicly
    proclaimed Armenophobic and bellicose rhetoric as another attempt
    by the head of the neighboring state to withdraw from a peaceful,
    constructive dialogue, a disregard for the efforts of the international
    partners, and reluctance to take political responsibility for
    establishing a lasting peace between the peoples of Armenia and
    Azerbaijan, the peoples of the entire region. Substitution of the
    existing problem of protecting democratic freedoms and human rights
    in his own state for creating an enemy image of the Armenian people,
    and the accents placed by President Aliyev corroborate his rejection
    of democratization of Azerbaijan. All of this gives reason to attract
    the world community attention, including the honest sons and daughters
    of the Azerbaijani people, to the fact that the hereditary regime
    of the Republic of Azerbaijan continues undermining the OSCE Minsk
    Group efforts to build trust between the parties to the Karabakh
    conflict, rejecting the truth and thereby the recognition of the
    legality of the 1991 referendum in Nagorno-Karabakh, the legitimacy
    of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic as a realistic ground for peaceful
    coexistence of the Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples.

    On behalf of Armenia's community of professional political scientists,
    the Political Science Association appeals to the OSCE Minsk Group
    Co-Chairs with a request to draw the attention of the President of
    the Republic of Azerbaijan to the inadmissibility for an official
    of a head-of-state status to arbitrarily interpret the norms of
    international law, sponsor the distortion of the historical truth,
    the propaganda of xenophobia and war, as these contradict the values,
    mission, goals and principles of the UN, the OSCE and the OSCE
    Minsk Group."

    http://www.armradio.am/en/2014/03/31/an-address-to-the-osce-minsk-group-co-chairs/



    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Working...
X