NKR FOREIGN MINISTER BLAMES INTERNATIONAL STRUCTURES FOR NOT RESPECTING NAGORNO KARABAKH PEOPLE’S RIGHT

Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
Apr 25 2006

STEPANAKERT, APRIL 25, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. At the April 21
parliamentary hearings on the subject “Prospects of Nagorno Karabakh
Settlement” held at NKR National Assembly with participation of RA and
NKR MPs, government members, representatives of NGOs, scientists and
experts, journalists, NKR Foreign Minister Georgi Petrosian blamed
the international structures for ignoring and not respecting the
Nagorno Karabakh people’s right. He said that in response to the
political demand addressed to the Azerbaijani authorities Artsakh
was exposed to ethnic cleansings by Baku. According to the Minister,
the official Azerbaijan has always tried to remove the issue of
self-determination from the legal plane to the military one. The head
of the NKR foreign political department emphasized that the current
proposals on the negotiations table more envisage liquidation of the
conflict consequences than all-embracing solution to the problem. “We
form an impression that the mediators try to solve the Nagorno Karabakh
problem within the framework of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity,
which completely contradicts the interests of our people and, to put
it mildly, is not moral,” Georgi Petrosian declared. He regretted
to say that in the settlement process the international mediators
factually neglect the results of the referendum held in Nagorno
Karabakh in 1991. The Foreign Minister came up with a proposal to sign
an agreement among all parties of the conflict, which will enable
to give up the intention to apply force and it will become clear
for the international community, who is indeed against the peaceful
settlement of the conflict. The same day, as Noyan Tapan was informed
from NKR Foreign Ministry Information and Analytical Department, NKR
National Assembly’s Democracy, Homeland factions and ARFD-Movement-88
group have come up with a statement about the Azerbaijani-Karabakh
conflict. In the statement the NKR NA groups and factions fix that the
proclamation of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic and all legal-political
steps of the republic proceeding from the NKR Declaration were
implemented in correspondence with the basic principles of the
former USSR legislation. The Artsakh parliamentarians emphasize that
Azerbaijan did not use the opportunity to solve all problems with the
proclaimed Nagorno Karabakh Republic through a dialogue but carrying on
a policy of ethnic intolerance, undertook illegal application of force
and does not give up the policy of solving the conflict in a military
way up to this day. Stating that they are loyal to the principle of
all-embracing settlement of the current problems through negotiations,
which will enable to exclude any hostility and attempts to change the
reached agreements through application of force in the future, the
Artsakh parliamentarians “qualify the 1991-1994 Azerbaijani-Karabakh
armed conflict as the aggression of the Republic of Azerbaijan against
the proclaimed Nagorno Karabakh Republic, NKR’s further steps as
application of the non-alienable law to undertake self-defence by a
people exposed to aggression, envisaged by Article 51 of UN Regulations
and the current events in the conflict zone as the consequences of this
aggression”. The authors of the statement consider that Azerbaijan as
an aggressor country bears responsibility for the war unleashed by
it and for its consequences, for the fate of the conflict parties’
hundreds of thousands of people who as a result of the warfare have
become refugees or internally displaced people, so it is obliged to
compensate the material and moral loss inflicted to them taking into
consideration the factor of loss of homeland by them, irrespective
of their nationality. Taking as a basis the 1994 Bishkek protocol
on ceasefire regime and the currently operating agreement adopted
in the same year, that were ratified by the signatures officially
recognized by authorized representatives of mediators of Nagorno
Karabakh, Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as the final and other
documents of OSCE Budapest Assembly where Nagorno Karabakh was
recognized as a conflict party, the Artsakh parliamentarians “apply to
OSCE Council of Ministers with a mediation to respect Nagorno Karabakh
Republic’s competent participation in the negotiations process of
conflict settlement, without which no agreement achieved can have
a legal force”. The authors of the document give assurance that
the recognition of the independent, democratic and viable Nagorno
Karabakh Republic established as a result of the 1991 December 10
national referendum completely fits into the modern reality and will
become an important factor of regional stability and security. NKR
parliamentarians notify OSCE Chairman-in-Office, parliaments of
member-states of OSCE Minsk Group, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly,
Council of Europe, NATO, European Parliament about the adoption of
the statement.