KARABAKH WAR VETS REJECT ARMENIAN LAND CONCESSIONS
By Ruzanna Stepanian and Anna Saghabalian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
July 4 2006

A group of prominent Armenian veterans of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh
on Tuesday warned Armenia’s leadership against returning any territory
to Azerbaijan, saying that would be tantamount to high treason.

In a statement which they claimed was signed by some two thousand
rank-and-file veterans, the former field commanders warned that the
authorities in Yerevan will earn the "status of Turkish occupiers
with all consequences stemming from that" if they agree to liberate
any of the seven Azerbaijani districts surrounding Karabakh. "At this
critical moment we are urging all patriotic forces to unite and defend
our endangered homeland," they said.

None of the known signatories of the statement is affiliated with the
Yerkrapah Union, the biggest and most influential of groups uniting
Karabakh war veterans. The Yerkrapah leadership, which is loyal to
the Armenian government, has not commented on the latest Karabakh
peace initiatives so far.

The angry statement was apparently prompted by the publication of the
main principles of the most recent international plan to resolve the
Karabakh conflict, which envisages Armenian withdrawal from at least
six of the occupied districts. The Lachin district, which serves as the
shortest overland link between Karabakh and Armenia, would remain under
Armenian control at least until a future referendum on the disputed
enclave’s status. Official Yerevan has largely accepted this plan.

"This is not mutual compromise, this is a surrender," said Manvel
Yeghiazarian, the former commander of the now disbanded Arabo militia
that fought in the Karabakh war. He warned that President Robert
Kocharian will be considered a "traitor" and incur his and many other
veterans’ ire if he signs such a deal.

"Twenty one fighters of Arabo went missing on June 29, 1992 [and
remain unaccounted for]. What should I say to their mothers?"

Yeghiazarian told reporters.

"Nobody must dare surrender those territories, whether he is a
president or a minister," said Levon Sahakian of the Independence Army,
another former paramilitary group. "Our brothers died there and those
lands are very important for us."

Ashot Bleyan, a former education minister and the most famous proponent
of far-reaching Armenian concessions to Azerbaijan, scoffed at such
arguments, challenging Armenian hardliners to settle in the largely
deserted Azerbaijani lands with their families. Bleyan, had served in
the administration of former President Levon Ter-Petrosian, rejected
their claims that the Armenians already resolved the Karabakh dispute
on the battlefield and must not concede anything.

"Before saying that we won, every Armenian must ask themselves:
What are they ready for? Are they ready to die? Are they ready to
send their boy to death?" he told a roundtable discussion in Yerevan.

Bleyan raised eyebrows in Armenia and Karabakh when he visited
Baku on a peace-making mission in late 1992, at the height of the
Armenian-Azerbaijani war. He declared on Tuesday that he is ready
to make another trip to Azerbaijan, describing it as a "potential
strategic partner" of Armenia. "If we don’t want to respect a
neighboring state and have relations with it, we can’t be serious,"
he said.

Yerevan’s apparent acceptance of the peace plan put forward by the
OSCE Minsk Group contrasts with serious reservations expressed by the
ethnic Armenian leadership of Karabakh. Samvel Babayan, the former
wartime commander of the Karabakh Armenian army, echoed Stepanakert’s
concerns in an interview with RFE/RL last week, saying that the plan
is too risky for the Armenian side because it calls for the return
of Azerbaijani refugees to Karabakh and Lachin.

"One small incidents, and all roads leading to Stepanakert would
again be blocked and we would return to 1988," said Babayan.