DON’T EXPLOIT THE ARMENIANS’ DESIRE TO LIVE IN PEACE
By Gayane Movsessian

Yerkir.am
April 01, 2006

To restore the trust between the Armenians and the Azeris, to
encourage the population of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Nagorno Karabagh
to think about peace (and not war) and foster a willingness to accept
a consensus.

This was the goal declared by the members of the working group
of Dortmund Regional Conference on Conflicts Harold Sonders
(ex-deputy secretary of state, USA), Vitaly Naumkin (director of
strategic research center) and their deputies Philip Stuart and Irina
Zvyagelskaya at the roundtable discussion on Karabagh settlement held
in Yerevan on March 29.

The working group on Karabagh settlement has held 9 rounds of
discussions in the past 4.5 years in the framework of the Dortmund
conference. As a result of the eighth and ninth rounds of discussions
the text of the Framework Agreement was drafted. The draft has already
been published in the media and will be submitted to the co-chairs
of the OSCE Minsk Group and the leaders of the three countries.

The working group members, all experts with extensive experience
in diplomatic work in conflict regions, are sure that the official
negotiations carried our in the framework of the Minsk Group are
not sufficient.

This is why they are trying to fill in this gap through negotiations
at the level of representatives of the three societies. “We are
not here to suggest final solutions. That is the prerogative of the
Minsk Group. We are here to suggest how to get to those solutions,”
one of the famous co-authors of the Camp David Accord on Arab-Israeli
conflict Harold Sonders noted.

“The Karabagh settlement process does not inspire optimism in
terms of a rapid and comprehensive settlement that would reflect the
interests of all parties engaged. This is why we propose to start with
something: let the troops withdraw, let a peace accord be signed and
then implemented. This process shows that problems can be settled
and that they cannot be settled without participation of Nagorno
Karabagh representatives.

And since the parties will sign the accords and be responsible for
their implementation they must have a certain status. We call it an
intermediate status. It is the acceptance of the fact that Nagorno
Karabagh is a party to the conflict. I think this is very important,”
Irina Zvyagelskaya said in her interview with Yerkir.

It is true that the working group members don’t know how to motivate
Azerbaijan to cooperate with Armenia and Karabagh. Zvyagelskaya
believes there are people in the three countries who are ready for
constructive cooperation and even risk for the sake of realization
of new ideas. However, such people do not have a say, especially in
the Azeri society.

Baku is constantly voicing calls for a new war and destruction of
Armenia and the Armenian nation. In this context mutual concessions
seem like attempts of unilateral concessions on the part of Armenians.

Head of the Sociology Chair at Yerevan State University Lyudmila
Harutyunian expressed her surprise that the international community is
trying to think of some concessions to make Azerbaijan see an obvious
fact – the fact that Nagorno Karabagh is a party of the conflict.

Harutyunian believes “negative peace and a tendency for positive peace”
already exist in Armenia and Nagorno Karabagh while in Azerbaijan there
are no signs of even negative peace. The international community is
favoring Azerbaijan more which means that it is demanding unilateral
concessions from Armenia.

“We forget that Camp David did not solve the Arab-Israeli
conflict. These are conflicts with historical roots that demand
alternative solutions. I think the Armenians’ desire to live in
peace should not be manipulated by the international community. The
international community should not tolerate Azerbaijan’s desire to
settle all problems in its favor,” Harutyunian stressed.

Harutyunian believes the peace building process has not started
yet. The Karabagh conflict still remains as a tool of settling various
issues for different actors engaged in the region. “If Armenians
agree to some intermediate solutions at this stage they will lose.

We don’t see any desire for peace. We speak about peace a lot
but when a peace building process starts a peace fund is usually
established. Why isn’t it established now to help settle the Karabagh
conflict? This means that we are still a long way from peace and
Armenians should not put down their arms being so far away from peace,”
Harutyunian stressed.