Azat Artsakh, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh
Sept 20 2005
X-Sender: Asbed Bedrossian <asbed@usc.edu>
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AZERBAIJAN LOST AGAIN

The member of the Armenian delegation to the PACE, Member of
Parliament Shavarsh Kocharian was deeply impressed by the meeting of
the PACE commission on the resolution of the Karabakh issue in Paris
on September 12. Returning from France, the member of the PACE
delegation was impatient to share his great impressions, as he
characterized them, with the journalists, informing that the list of
the participants was impressive. At the meeting the representatives
of the three Minsk Group co-chairs, Andrzej Kasprzyk who has long
been the special representative of the OSCE and has been occupied
with the monitoring of the cease-fire, Goran Lennmarker, who is
special reporter to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Heikki Talvitie,
representing the European Union, had been present. What was the
reason for the mood of Shavarsh Kocharian? `First of all, the
arguments of the Azerbaijani party were beaten down.’ He also pointed
out the fact that at the meeting all the participants mentioned that
the issue of Artsakh should be resolved only under the auspices of
the OSCE Minsk Group, and the role of other international
organizations, particularly the Council of Europe, is to support the
resolution of the conflict. In fact, the hopes of the Azerbaijani
party to settle the Karabakh issue outside the OSCE Minsk Group were
destroyed. The model of resolution is also there. `I think that there
is a tendency to involve wider circles around this model which is
being formed to be used for the aim of resolution,’ said Shavarsh
Kocharian. For years on the only obstacle on the way of resolution of
the issue of Artsakh was the contradicting principles of the sides;
Azerbaijan has always been guided by the principle of territorial
integrity, and Armenia pursued the principle of self-determination of
Karabakh. According to Shavarsh Kocharian, the positive thing today
is that the participants of the meeting managed to arrive at points
where this controversy between these principles can be overcome.
`Yes, territorial integrity but in reference to the territories which
are outside the borders of Nagorno Karabakh Republic; as to
self-determination, it refers to the territory of Nagorno Karabakh
Republic.’ Analysing the details of the meeting in Paris, Shavarsh
Kocharian literally stated that a package settlement of the issue
will be adopted, which will be fulfilled stage by stage. This model
referred to as a stage by stage model looks like the model of 1997
which supposed that the Armenian party should return to Azerbaijan
the liberated areas, and only after this would they go on to
negotiate the status; in other words, Karabakh would appear inside
Azerbaijan. This danger, however, according to Shavarsh Kocharian,
does not exist today. Although the mechanisms of resolution were not
discussed at the meeting, according to the spokesperson, everyone who
addressed the meeting mentioned by all means that they were not
supposed to consider details yet. Nevertheless, positive tendencies
were apparent. For example, the participants of the meeting stated
that Karabakh cannot be an enclave and should have land borders with
Armenia. Despite the objections of the Azerbaijani party why only the
corridor between Armenia and Karabakh was discussed and other
corridors were ignored, it was said that those were quite different,
and particularly Karabakh should not be an enclave.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress