MEDIA ALERT

DATE: March 27, 2006
TO: Media Colleagues
RE: The Washington Post publishes NKR Representative’s Letter

Today, The Washington Post published NKR Representative Vardan
Barseghian’s letter to the Editor in response to a March 11, 2006
op-ed column entitled “Russia’s Shadow Empire” by Ana Palacio and
Daniel Twining. Representative Barseghian’s letter is included
below:

The Washington Post
Letters to the Editor
A Conflict Frozen

Monday, March 27, 2006; A14

The March 11 op-ed column “Russia’s Shadow Empire” touched upon the
“frozen conflicts” on the territory of the former Soviet Union. The
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict remains “frozen” because of Azerbaijan’s
unwillingness to accept the democratically expressed will of the
people of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Nagorno-Karabakh has never belonged to an independent Azerbaijan. It
has the legal, factual and moral prerequisites to pursue its
independence.

The authors of the op-ed piece advocated rewarding Azerbaijan for
its willingness to cooperate in ending this conflict. Do President
Ilham Aliyev’s regular threats to launch a new war against
Nagorno-Karabakh count as goodwill?

The European Union and the United States should support the
aspirations of Nagorno-Karabakh to remain free and discourage
Azerbaijan from unleashing a new war. This would signal Azerbaijan
that it should embark on more constructive negotiations to bring
stability and economic cooperation to Europe’s new neighborhood.

VARDAN BARSEGHIAN
Representative
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
Washington

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based in Washington, DC and works with the U.S. government, academia
and the public representing the official policies and interests of
the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, Artsakh.