TALK ABOUT RECAPTURING KARABAKH BY FORCE NOT HELPFUL

Yerkir
30.06.2006 17:01

YEREVAN (YERKIR) – "I was not surprised it caused a stir to tell you
the truth, because we knew — the co-chairs knew — and my predecessor
Steven Mann, the co-chair before I assumed responsibility on the very
day of that interview, knew that what they had just announced at the
OSCE was significant and would, well, make people think twice, and
would spark, as we like to put it, a robust debate in the region. I
was simply in the unenviable position of having been on this newest
assignment for an hour and I was the guy that got to explain the
decision that others had made before me.

No, I wasn’t surprised that a robust debate was sparked. What did
surprise me though was that people spoke so quickly in reacting to
the interview without reading the publicly available document that
the co-chairs issued at the OSCE in Austria, which laid out in much
greater detail everything," the U.S. diplomat said.

"Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan and their Foreign Ministers
did not agree on the core principles that were developed over the
course of two years by the co-chairs," Bryza said. However, in his
words, talk about recapturing Karabakh by force or any use of force
by any party is simply not helpful. "My predecessor, Steven Mann, and
my current fellow co-chairs, have exerted all of the creativity and
all the negotiating energy that they could and they have gotten this
framework of core principles as honed as possible in their judgment,
such that the presidents, in their mind, need a little time to think
things over and decide whether or not they can accept or adjust
this framework.

But what we’re saying in the statement is that there is no more room
for diplomatic creativity to make this piece of metal shine a little
bit more brightly. It’s honed and you have to decide whether you
want it or not, or the trade-offs that would have to be made are so
significant politically that it requires the head of state to make
the trade-off. So we’re saying OK, it’s yours now," Bryza said.

"Even though I didn’t have a hand in drafting the statement, I
can say particularly because I didn’t, I think it’s an excellent
statement. It’s very clear, and lays out in a lot of detail what
exactly the overall set of trade-offs would be.

Demilitarization is the phrase used for troop pull-back, and that, as
the framework indicates, should be, or could be, accompanied by some
sort of process that would lead to a population vote, or a referendum
vote on the future status of Karabakh.

I think that’s, in the Armenian mindset, extremely important, so
that’s what the Azerbaijani side would have to offer the Armenians,
along with the other things within this statement to which I refer you.

On the Azerbaijani side, I think that they are willing to consider the
possibility of some type of a vote on the status of Nagorno Karabakh
if many other elements of this overall package are present. What gets
difficult is how you correlate the withdrawal, or the redeployment,
of Armenian troops with the timing of a vote on the future status of
Karabakh," Mr Bryza resumed.