THERE IS A REAL DANGER OF HANDING LIBERATED TERRITORIES OVER

Azg/arm
18 Dec 04

Armen Aghayan, political secretary of Protection of Liberated
Territories NGO, announced in the press conference that “the threat has
increased and there seems to be a real danger of handing the liberated
territories over.” He condemned both the former and the current
Armenian authorities in this, saying that they are ready to hand the
liberated territories contiguous Nagorno Karabakh to Azerbaijan.

“What the former authorities do?” Some suggestions were made to Armenia
in Astana, Kazakhstan, Armenia rejected them or didnâ~@~Yt agree at
once, after which pressures began, i.e. PACE reports (by Davis and
Atkinson), the UN formula. Yes, the Minsk group has averted that,
but its aim is to exert a pressure, if you donâ~@~Yt accept it
(Astana suggestion), we will impose it on you,” Aghayan said.

“The authorities explain Azerbaijan and OSCE co-chairs that they
didnâ~@~Yt inhabit the regions and they didnâ~@~Yt even intend
to. They say that these territories serving a security zone will
be finally returned, but only against specifying the status of NKR
or giving security guarantees. While the opponents say that it is
better to trade the territories than to give them for free,” Aghayan
described the position of the Armenian authorities.

He believes that there is no contradiction between the former and the
current authorities in the NKR issue. “Kocharian didnâ~@~Yt go far
from Ter-Petrosian both in the NKR issue and in other issues,” he said.

Aghayan thinks that only the Armenian people can be an opposition in
the NKR issue. “No one knows what will be the reaction of the people,
but the authorities are frightened, otherwise this issue (the one of
handing the territories) would be solved long ago, as no power would
stand the pressure of the West.”

“In fact, the issue of the liberated territories is the only one that
arouses disputes after the war and the keystone in the suggestions
of the co-chairs. We can even exaggerate the matter, saying that
there is no other issue existing in the context of Nagorno Karabakh
settlement except for the issue of the territories. The rest of the
issues are derivative,” Aghayan said.

The members of the NGO are sure that the issue of Nagorno Karabakh can
have no international solution. They believe that the only settlement
of the problem is the Armenian version and envisages full and fast
inhabiting and utilization of all the liberated regions, as well as
the announcement of the Armenian power in these territories.

Aghayan believes that we should make Azerbaijan accept the reality of
unilateral activates (unification of NKR with RA together with all
the territories under the control of the Karabakh forces). “Neither
the Azeri people, nor their country have no internal resources to
take back these regions, if they had they wouldnâ~@~Yt have left
them. They are foreigners in these territories. As they banished the
native residents, the same thing the naïve dwellers did to them.
The Azeri understand this factor very well,” Aghayan said.

By Tatoul Hakobian

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