MHER SHAHGELDIAN: THEY HAVE GREAT POSSIBILITIES TO CONTINUE NEGOTIATIONS ON KARABAKH SETTLEMENT

Noyan Tapan
Apr 10 2006

YEREVAN, APRIL 10, NOYAN TAPAN. One may not say that the Karabakh
negotiation process entered deadlock at the meeting of the Presidents
of Armenia and Azerbaijan taken place in Ramboillet recently. Mher
Shahgeldian, the Chairman of the RA NA Standing Committee on Defence,
Internal Affairs and National Security Issues expressed such a
confidence at the April 7 meeting with journalists at the “Pastark”
club. According to him, this was one of the negotiation stages, and
those negotiations have great possibilities to continue. Attaching
importance to the continuous character of the negotiation process,
the speaker expressed an opinion that the year of 2006 may become a
“window” for solution of the Karabakh issue. According to him, it’s
obvious that international structures and negotiators are interested
for the negotiations continue. The speaker found it difficult to say
for what compromises Azerbaijan is ready.

According to him, the martial statements of the Azerbaijani side
do not coincide with the position of the international community as
well as of Armenia, concerning settling the issue in a peaceful way,
and from this viewpoint, the probability of the Azerbaijani side’s
going to compromise must increase. He attached importance to the
circumstance that the universal approach of the international community
but not of separate states exists in this issue. At the same time,
Shahgeldian mentioned that negotiators may propose different models,
but the final solution depends on the conflict sides. The deputy didn’t
agree with the opinion, that the U.S. attempts to speed up solution
of the Karabakh problem. According to him, solution of the Nagorno
Karabakh problem is itself important for the U.S., from the viewpoint
of securing stability in the South Caucasian region. According to the
speaker, it’s impossible to implement directly the model of Kosovo in
Karabakh. But there are approaches in that model which may be used. At
the same time, it’s spoken about the participation of Nagorno Karabakh
in the negotiation process, observing the issue in the context of
the Eurointegration process.