ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER SAYS INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY READY TO ACKNOWLEDGE KARABAKH`S INDEPENDENCE

Noyan tapan

YEREVAN, 16.10.04. The international community has come to terms
with Nagorno-Karabakh’s secession from Azerbaijan and is ready
to recognize its de facto independence, Foreign Minister Vartan
Oskanian declared on 13 October in response to a question from an
Armenian parliamentarian. “Whereas six years ago nobody was letting
us even dream about Karabakh not being part of Azerbaijan [under a
future peace accord], today not only we but also the international
community, including the co-chairs of the [Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe’s] Minsk Group, are freely talking about
that,” he said.

“Today the fact of Karabakh not being part of Azerbaijan is real, and
the international community looks at it in a very normal manner. This
doesn’t mean they will publicly affirm it. But I can state for certain
that they consider that option a real one.”

Oskanian was apparently alluding to a Karabakh peace agreement
worked out during talks in Paris and Florida during the spring of
2001. According to Western press reports, the plan put forward by
French, Russian, and U.S. mediators called for Karabakh’s formal
incorporation into Armenia in return for the latter guaranteeing a
transport corridor between Azerbaijan and its Nakhichevan exclave. The
Armenian side maintains that the two sides came close to signing
that accord, but that Azerbaijan’s former President Heidar Aliyev
backtracked on the deal. However, Baku claims that no such agreements
were reached at the time.