NATO WISHES TO RECONCILE ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN;
In exchange for a compromise the conflicting parties are offered economic benefits
Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
July 24, 2006 Monday
By Sokhbet Mamedov
PRESIDENT OF THE PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY OF NATO PIERRE LELUCH
PREPARED PROPOSALS FOR NAGORNO-KARABAKH REGULATION; President of the
parliamentary assembly of NATO Pierre Leluch will visit Azerbaijan
and Armenia.
President of the parliamentary assembly of NATO Pierre Leluch will
visit Azerbaijan and Armenia. For Baku and Yerevan, he has proposals
for resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
After abolishment of the planned meetings of presidents Ilkham Aliyev
and Robert Kocharjan planned this year, two times the parliamentary
assembly of NATO decided to sit them down at a table of negotiations.
A source in the parliament of Azerbaijan reported that president
of the assembly Pierre Leluch already prepared proposals for the
presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia that he would present to them
in autumn during his visit to these countries.
According to the source, Leluch will propose several measures to the
parties of the conflict that will allow "avoidance of political and
other difficulties after signing a peaceful agreement." The president
of the parliamentary assembly promises economic dividends to the
parties in exchange for compromises. So far, Baku and Yerevan prefer
not to say what kind of economic benefits are offered.
This is the second time when Leluch tries to join the negotiation
process carried out under the aegis of the Minsk group of OSCE where
Russia, US and France are co-chairs. Back in May, Leluch invited
presidents Aliyev and Kocharjan to Paris to take part in the spring
session of the parliamentary assembly. Kocharjan ignored the invitation
then, referring to "business."
According to analyst Alpay Akhmed, Yerevan has to build its relations
with NATO looking back at Moscow that is discontent with active
cooperation of its loyal ally in the Caucasus with NATO. Besides,
in the future this cooperation may grow into a wish to become a
member of this organization. Incidentally, such symptoms are already
observed. In spring, speaker of Armenian parliament Artur Bagdasaryan
visited Europe and spoke about possible entrance of Armenia in NATO
and European Union. However, such liberty of the speaker encountered
harsh critique of the President and Bagdasaryan had to resign.
As for Ilkham Aliyev, lately he has been focusing attention in
every speech on "non-constructive stance of the Armenian part at the
negotiations." Recently Aliyev announced that "a chance is given to
Armenia to liberate the occupied Azerbaijani territories voluntarily
and to solve the problem without bloodshed and war."
According to local analysts, such harsh statement by the Azerbaijani
leader can be taken as a response to the recent statement of the
co-chairs of the Minsk group of OSCE where they actually confessed
their helplessness and laid responsibility for resolving the conflict
on heads of the states of the two countries. This means that the
negotiation process has come to a dead end. The cease-fire regime is
very fragile and there are no international separating forces between
the parties of the conflict, which means that an undesirable incident
is not ruled out at any moment. Official Baku also hints that it is
not going to take part in fruitless negotiations.
Source: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, July 20, 2006, p. EV