OSCE MINSK GROUP FAVORS DISPATCHING FACT-FINDING MISSION TO KARABAGH

ArmenPress
Nov 24 2004

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 24, ARMENPRESS: Armenia’s Permanent Representative
at the UN, Armen Martirosian, rebuked Azerbaijan for taking a draft
resolution “on the situation on occupied territories” to the UN General
Assembly’s consideration on November 23, which he said was done under
the guise of “urgency”, but was not based on any substantiation and
any factually correct information.

He said the inclusion of a new agenda item on the matter did not
enjoy the support of an overwhelming majority of the Assembly and
was opposed by the Minsk Group Co-Chairs, who have been dealing
with the conflict in and around Nagorno-Karabakh for 12 years now,
who had unequivocally stated that the move did not meet the required
criteria of urgency and importance, and was counterproductive as well.

He said that, although presenting the draft under consideration
as a balanced document that did not interfere in the Minsk Group
mediation, Azerbaijan had attempted to give one-sided answers to
almost all the elements of the negotiation package, namely the
status of Nagorno-Karabakh, the issues of Azerbaijani refugees and
internally displaced persons and the territories themselves, trying
also to present its resolution from the perspective of human rights
and humanitarian law.

“A country which has violated these laws in the first place with
meticulously planned and systematically carried out massacres of
Armenians in its capital Baku, cities of Sumgait and Kirovabad (Ganja)
from 1988 to 1990 during peacetime, tries to cloak its own actions
by selectively applying international humanitarian law”, he said of
Azerbaijan. He said the draft resolution limits the application of
the return of refugees to “the area of conflict” and to ethnic Azeris
only, conveniently leaving out the rights of over 400,000 Armenians
under the same laws, particularly those from the immediate conflict
zone from Shahumain, Getashen and northern Martakert, whose homes
were fully confiscated and populated by ethnic Azeris.

Despite its continued calls for the observance of humanitarian
law, it was Azerbaijan that consistently hindered any kind of
international involvement or operation in Nagorno-Karabakh, thus
violating those laws, as well as relevant Security Council resolutions,
he continued. Azerbaijan also spotlighted Nagorno-Karabakh as being an
alleged safe haven for all possible sorts of ills, yet when authorities
there and Armenia invited international fact-finding teams to verify
the nature of those allegations, Azerbaijan had created all kinds of
obstacles, hindering the mission’s dispatch.

Martirosian said Azerbaijan also tried to formalize its totally
baseless allegations by misrepresenting the tenor of Security Council
resolutions and selective interpretation of international laws. It
avoided mentioning one major international legal principle in the
current resolution: the right of peoples to self-determination. That,
despite the fact that the exercise of that right was at the core of
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Further, Azerbaijan “conveniently forgets” that the Council resolutions
mentioned “local Armenian forces” and called for unimpeded access
for international relief efforts, and restoration of economic,
transport and energy links to the region. Indeed, Azerbaijan had never
implemented those particular provisions of the Council resolutions
it so frequently mentioned.

With the resolution under consideration today, Azerbaijan tried
to dissect the so-called occupied territories from the package
of negotiations, he said. However, it failed to admit that those
territories had come under the control of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians
as a result of the war unleashed by Azerbaijan in an attempt
to stifle the peaceful drive of the people of that region for
self-determination. Given the military suppression in the region in
the very recent past and the war mongering rhetoric of the Azerbaijani
leadership, the issue of those territories could not be resolved
unless there was a resolution on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh,
and security guarantees were provided.

He said that Nagorno-Karabakh had never been a part of an independent
Azerbaijan. The people of Nagorno-Karabakh had proven their right to
live freely and securely on their own territory both legally — through
a referendum conducted in 1991 — and by defending that right in a war
unleashed against them by Azerbaijan. While peace should be achieved
first and foremost between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan
was not interested in the peaceful resolution of the conflict. It
had rejected or walked out on every single peace proposal made by
the Minsk Group. The present motion aimed at further torpedoing those
ongoing negotiations and in diverting the international community’s
efforts into parallel processes, which would allow it to maneuver
between them without committing to a final settlement of the conflict.

After introducing the relevant draft resolution Azerbaijan’s
foreign affairs minister Elmar Mamedyarov said still 11 years
ago the Assembly had considered the issue of the occupation of
the territories of his country, and had expressed support for the
efforts of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE)-led Minsk Group (Co-Chaired by France, United States and the
Russian Federation), aimed at settling the conflict in accordance
with the norms and principles of international law. Since then,
the OSCE-led negotiations had yielded both successes and failures,
and a host of Security Council resolutions adopted in response to the
occupation of Azerbaijan’s territories remained the principle basis
for settlement of the conflict with Armenia.

He said the occupation of a significant part of Azerbaijan’s
territories and the resultant heavy humanitarian burden had obviously
made Azerbaijan the country most interested in bringing about an
effective peace as soon as possible. Azerbaijan’s consistent adherence
to a ceasefire over the past decade had demonstrated that it preferred
peaceful settlement of the conflict for the benefit of the entire
region, he said.

Susan Moore of the United States, speaking on behalf of the co-Chairs
of the OSCE’s Minsk Group (United States, France and the Russian
Federation), said the issue before the Assembly was one in which
the OSCE and the Minsk Group had been actively involved in, with a
view to finding a lasting solution to the situation prevailing in
the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. She said the Minsk process
had already produced positive results. It had made proposals to the
parties and was now awaiting a response to those proposals before
proceeding to the next stage.

In that light, she welcomed the efforts of the international community,
through the Assembly, noting that any actions taken by that body
and others were helpful and, therefore, welcome. Stressing that no
efforts should be spared in the search for a peaceful resolution of
the problem, she said serious consideration should be given to the
dispatching of a fact-finding mission, and urged the parties to take
necessary steps to facilitate the OSCE’s efforts.

The Assembly was then informed that action on the draft resolution
on the situation in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan would be
taken at a later date.