Return of occupied Azeri districts dangerous for Armenia – paper    

Aykakan Zhamanak, Yerevan
12 Jun 04

The return of Azerbaijan’s seven occupied districts poses a
threat to Armenia’s security, the Armenian newspaper Aykakan
Zhamanak has said. This will allow Azerbaijan to control the whole
Armenian-controlled sector of the Azerbaijani-Iranian border and
worsen the position of the Armenian troops along the front line,
the newspaper said. According to Aykakan Zhamanak, these steps can
seriously threaten the security of Karabakh and Armenia’s southern
regions. If this information is true, it will confirm the failure of
President Robert Kocharyan’s Karabakh policy and testify that he is
using this to extend his power, the newspaper said. The following
is the text of Erdzanik Abgaryan’s report by Armenian newspaper
Aykakan Zhamanak on 12 June headlined “Conflict in the business
sphere?”. Subheadings have been inserted editorially:

The warning issued by the first president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, that
in the Karabakh conflict our real enemy is not Azerbaijan, but the
world community has become evident. And even the political forces in
power who are suffering from night blindness and corrupt intellectuals
who are eating their leftovers can notice this if they want.

Helpless Kocharyan

The Council of Europe, the OSCE, the European Union and NATO have
attacked [Armenian President Robert] Kocharyan. Kocharyan is helpless
because even his “partner” Putin cannot help him. He was warned six or
seven months ago that during the NATO summit in Istanbul progress will
be made in the Karabakh problem and Armenian-Turkish relations. If you
remember, some time after that, the Dashnaks [Armenian Revolutionary
Federation – Dashnaktsutyun] started speaking even about holding a
referendum on the Karabakh issue. If their Karabakh policy fails,
[Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan] Oskanyan threatens to resign, etc.
But as is seen, Kocharyan understood the seriousness of the problem
later and turned off the wrong path, deciding not to go to Istanbul.

But this step did not help him either. Oskanyan has been summoned
to Washington, and on 15 June, he should be there with Kocharyan’s
reply to a letter from the American co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk
Group, Steven Mann, who suddenly turned up in Yerevan about 10
days ago. According to our information, during a recent meeting
between the coalition parties, Yerkrapa [Union of Volunteers] and
representatives of the Nagornyy Karabakh Republic [NKR], Kocharyan
put to a vote the issue of returning Fuzuli, Cabrayil and Zangilan
Districts to Azerbaijan.

The highest price

In fact, Kocharyan suggested discussing the issue of surrendering
the regions of the most strategic importance to Azerbaijan, through
which the Baku-Naxcivan railway passes, which will allow Azerbaijan to
control the whole Armenian-controlled sector of the Azerbaijani-Iranian
border. It is obvious that the territory of those regions should
have the highest price in the settlement of the Karabakh issue. The
positions of our troops that are in this sector of the front will
worsen: the current 20km front line will be extended by 10 times and
will become 200km long. These steps, which are beyond the logic of any
option for the conflict settlement, can seriously threaten Karabakh
and the security of Armenia’s Megri region.

New events, in particular the surrender of [Azerbaijan’s] Zangilan
District, which will lead to the establishment of contact between
Armenia and Azerbaijan on the southern border, raise the issue of
Kapan’s protection. This problem is directly related to the security
of Kapan. It is inadmissible for Kapan to be on the state border
again. Incidentally, we still do not know how Kocharyan is going
to settle such problems which are great in number in the Karabakh
issue. We do not know either which problems connected with the
interests of Armenia and Karabakh Kocharyan will settle if these
regions are surrendered to Azerbaijan. According to some information,
in that case, the USA is ready to give 150m dollars to Armenia within
the framework of “Millennium Challenges” programme and force Azerbaijan
to give up its efforts to include the Karabakh conflict in the sphere
of the anti-terrorist fight.

Kocharyan’s failure

It is difficult to say how correct this information is, but if it
is really so, then it is threatening: if Armenia does not agree,
it will be sidelined from the “Millennium Challenges” programme
and the Karabakh conflict may be included in the anti-terrorist
sphere. Moreover, it is not clear how Kocharyan sees this problem,
which is separate from the Karabakh issue, in the general difficult
context of Armenian-Azerbaijani disagreements. This does not meet the
logic of the stage-by-stage or package settlement options. According
to our information, during the above meeting, everybody listened to
Kocharyan in silence.

The only person who supported this suggestion was Artur Bagdasaryan
[chairman of the National Assembly] who has a dim understanding of
the problems of Karabakh policy and who has announced that his party
[Law-Governed Country Party] is ready to support Kocharyan openly
in the issue of surrendering those regions. The only person who was
against it was the NKR defence minister, Seyran Oganyan, who expresses
the viewpoint of the Karabakh leadership. Finally, it will be clear
soon what Oskanyan will take to Washington with him. If these rumours
are true, it turns out that by turning the most important sector of
the occupied territories into something that can be bought and sold,
Kocharyan in fact confirmed the failure of his Karabakh policy. That’s
to say, like in 1998, he failed the Karabakh issue for the sake of
seizing power. Exactly in the same way, he can make this problem
serve his personal purpose – to extend his power.