STEPANAKERT SEES THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP REPORT AS ‘BIASED AND PRO-AZERBAIJANI’

Azg, Armenia
Oct 5 2005

The Foreign Ministry of the Nagornyy Karabakh Republic [NKR] last week
commented on the International Crisis Group’s [ICG] report “Nagornyy
Karabakh: Viewing the Conflict from the Ground”, which was published
on 14 September.

The ministry’s comments show that Stepanakert is not satisfied with
the ICG report. The political experts and the NKR president’s adviser,
David Babayan, has told Azg daily that “the report was prepared in
the best interests of Azerbaijan and one gets the impression that
the document was prepared by an Azerbaijani ministry” and “instead
of bringing forward the settlement of the conflict, the report has
a negative impact on the settlement process”.

Babayan, who sees eye-to-eye with the Karabakh Foreign Ministry,
thinks that the report gives the impression that Nagornyy Karabakh is
a militarized state which is totally dependent on Armenia and that
the Karabakh conflict is a territorial dispute between Armenia and
Azerbaijan, which results from Armenia’s aggression. “It is a serious
shortcoming that the report ignores the fact that 90% of Armenians
were displaced as a result of ethnic cleansing, pogroms and police
actions organized by the Azerbaijani authorities in 1988-1991, whereas
85% of Azerbaijanis were forced to leave their homes only during the
hostilities that began in 1993. Moreover, no force was used to expel
them, they left together with the retreating Azerbaijani forces on
orders from the Azerbaijani authorities,” the NKR Foreign Ministry
says in the statement.

The report seems to be even more pro-Azerbaijani when it comes to
refugees and internally displaced persons. “The number of Armenian
refugees who the authors claim belong to the category that suffered
most of all is reduced by 35,000 (these are refugees from [Karabakh’s]
Shaumyan, Martuni and Mardakert districts). The number of Armenian
refugees is compared with 425,000 Azerbaijani refugees.

Favouritism towards Azerbaijani refugees is obvious in figures, too:
the Azerbaijani refugees are mentioned 186 times whereas Armenian
refugees only 40 times. The Armenian refugees are often mentioned in
a negative context as illegal inhabitants of the Karabakh-controlled
territories.”

“The first sentence of the report’s first chapter says that ‘Nagornyy
Karabakh is perhaps the most militarized society of the world’.

Saying that the Nagornyy Karabakh armed forces have 18,500 soldiers,
the authors fail to mention that the Karabakh defence army is forced
to contain 40,000 Azerbaijani soldiers on the opposite side of the
border,” the Foreign Ministry says in the statement.

Yet Stepanakert sees positive aspects in the report, too. It points out
that Nagornyy Karabakh has a point in claiming independence, that the
Karabakh-controlled territories are not occupied by Armenia and that
Azerbaijan’s allegations that there are 1.5m refugees and that 20%
of Azerbaijani territory is under Karabakh’s occupation are not true.

Touching on the negative aspects of the report, Stepanakert points out
that the interests of Armenian refugees and displaced persons have been
neglected, which is discrimination on the part of the non-government
organization, that the report says there is a danger that hostilities
in the conflict zone will resume, that the ICG does not recognize
the borders of the NKR and takes the Soviet administrative border
as a basis and that the authors tend to hold Armenia and Azerbaijan
equally responsible for the conflict (this approach was used by the
Soviet authorities in 1988-1991, which allowed Azerbaijan to invade
the NKR). The ICG will also publish its second report called “Voices
from the Negotiating Table”.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress