POLITICAL SCIENTIST DOES NOT EXCLUDE THAT DAYTON VARIANT CAN BE USED IN KARABAKH SETTLEMENT

Noyan Tapan
Apr 25 2006

YEREVAN, APRIL 25, NOYAN TAPAN. The considerable activity observed in
the process of Nagorno Karabakh settlement in the recent 4-5 months is
connected not only purely with the Nagorno Karabakh problem but also
with processes taking place in the world. Stepan Grigorian, Chairman
of the Board of the Analytical Center for Globalization and Regional
Cooperation, expressed such an opinion in his interview to Noyan Tapan
correspondent. According to him, even the failure in Rambouillet
“did not sober the most active participants, U.S. and a number of
European countries”, which, by the way, are interested in the quick
settlement of the problem. Such a position has its reasons. Thus,
the role of the South Caucasus increases day by day: a number of
gas and oil pipelines pass through the South Caucasus, in addition,
problems connected with the neighboring Iran and Iraq are set very
sharply, even serious actions against Iran are not excluded. On the
other hand, Armenia’s and Azerbaijan’s positions lack common verges,
the authorities of the two countries do not show a political will
of making concessions, the societies of the conflict parties are
not ready for a reconciliation and do not perceive the fact that
the concessions should be made by both of the countries. And the
most important circumstance showing that the problem will not be
solved soon, according to S.Grigorian, is that Karabakh is not a
part of the negotiations process up to this day, whereas in cases
of Abkhazia, Transdniestria and Southern Cyprus the non-recognized
parties took part in the negotiations. Stepan Grigorian said that
all these arguments show that indeed the parties of the conflict
are not ready for the settlement of the Karabakh problem. He gave
assurance that neither Aliyev nor Kocharian will sign any agreement
at the coming meeting. Thus, according to the political scientist,
the same old story will recur: a series of meetings that will not
yield any result, either. The political scientist expressed anxiety
that such processes can lead to a situation when the Dayton variant
will be applied towards the parties. The latter is known to be a
variant of forced peace, when the decisions are made by the powers
outside of the parties of the conflict. Stepan Grigorian does not
exclude that the pressure currently being exerted in the Nagorno
Karabakh process will lead to this variant.