AZG Armenian Daily #181, 08/10/2005

Karabakh issue

‘NK CONFLICT HAS NO SETTLEMENT THAT ALL SIDES WOULD BE HAPPY WITH’

Armenian President Repeats That Karabakh’s Independence Has Nothing to Do
With Azerbaijan’s Territorial Integrity

At a joint press conference with his Latvian counterpart, President Robert
Kocharian said that there is no settlement to the Nagorno Karabakh issue
that will make all sides happy. To a Latvian journalist’s question “How is
that possible to find a solution that would satisfy all parties?”, the
Armenian President said that first of all the people of Karabakh should be
asked with whom and how they want to live.

The officials in Yerevan have been stating in recent years that Nagorno
Karabakh never was within Azerbaijan’s structure and will never be or else
Karabakh’s independence has nothing to do with Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity. These statements from Armenian President’s mouth yesterday came
in very handy.

Allegedly, president Kocharian made this statement especially in the
presence of President Vaira Vike-Freiberga of Latvia who said in Baku a few
days ago that “violation of a sovereign state’s territorial integrity is a
worrisome factor”. Besides, Nagorno Karabakh was forced into Azerbaijan like
Latvia was once annexed to the Soviet empire. At the press conference
following the president’s meeting, Kocharian said that it is
incomprehensible speaking about territorial integrity in this case when we
deal with collapse of an empire. “I see no contradiction in the principle of
territorial wholeness and peoples’ right for self-determination. Karabakh’s
independence has nothing in common with Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.
After the collapse of the USSR, Karabakh declared its independence through a
referendum and Azerbaijan declared of revival of its independence lost in
1918. Nagorno Karabakh has never been in the structure of independent
Azerbaijan”, the leader of Armenia said.

Vike-Freiberga has previously introduced her state’s position on NK issue as
that of the EU which places a country’s territorial integrity first. “When
an empire crumbles there is no question of territorial integrity. The
collapse of the Soviet Union gave birth to 15 new states, the map of Europe
changed, 5 new states emerged on the Balkans and 6th one is in the process
of formation (perhaps he meant Kosovo – ed.), two separate states were
formed in the place of Czechoslovakia… The issue of territorial integrity
is out of question”, President Kocharian said.

Asked by another Latvian journalist whether the fact of Armenian-Russian
close ties is not an obstacle for deeper Armenian-Latvian relations,
Kocharian said that Armenia implements policy of complementarism: “We have
very good relations with Iran, NATO, USA and Russia. If we managed to
maintain good relations with Iran and the US in the same time why should we
have problems in cooperating with Latvia maintaining meanwhile good
relations with Russia?”, Robert Kocharian said.

By Tatoul Hakobian