AT THE UN, MICRO-STATES SIMMER UNDER THE ASSEMBLY’S SURFACE, WHILE INCOMING COUNCIL PRESIDENT DODGES MOST QUESTIONS
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee at the UN

Inner City Press, NY
Aug 6 2006

UNITED NATIONS, September 5 — Nagorno Karabakh, one of the world
most frozen and forgotten conflicts, surfaced at the UN on Tuesday,
if only for ten minutes. The General Assembly was scheduled to vote
on a resolution concerning fires in the occupied territories of
Azerbaijan. The diplomats assembled, or began to assemble, at 4 p.m..

At 4:15 it was announced that in light of ongoing negotiations,
the meeting was cancelled, perhaps to reconvene Wednesday at 11:30.

Sources close to the negotiations told Inner City Press that the
rub is paragraph 4 of the draft resolution, which requests that
the Secretary-General report to the UN General Assembly on the
conflict. Armenia wants the matter to remain before the Minsk Group
of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has
presided over the problem for more than a decade. Leading the OSCE’s
Minsk Group are Russia, France and the United States, members of the
veto-wielding Permanent Five on the UN Security Council, nations which
Azerbaijan claims have ignored its sovereignty as well as blocking
Security Council action, as for example Russia has on Chechnya.

Of the fires, Azerbaijan has characterized them as Armenian arson,
and has asked for international pressure to allow it to reach the
disputed territories where the fires have been.

Nagorno-Karabakh, per WFP

At a July 13, 2006 briefing on the BTC pipeline, Inner City Press
asked the Ambassador of Azerbaijan Yashar Aliyev about the pipeline’s
avoidance of Armenia. We cannot deal with them until they stop
occupying our territory, Ambassador Aliyev said. "You mean Nagorno
– Karabakh?" Not only that, Amb. Aliyev answered. That’s only four
percent. Few people know this, but Armenia has occupied twenty percent
of our territory.

Both Amenia’s Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian and UN Ambassador
Armen Martirosian have said publicly in the past month that if
Azerbaijan continues pushing the issue before the United Nations,
the existing peace talks will stop. Armenian sources privately speak
more darkly of an alliance of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova,
collectively intent on involving the UN in reigning in their breakaway
regions including South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Transdniestria
— examples of what some call the micro-states. Armenia is concerned
that in the UN as opposed to OSCE, Azerbaijan might be able to rally
Islamic nations to its side.

It is not only to predominantly Muslim nations that the Azeri’s are
reaching out. The nation’s foreign minister Elmar Mammadyarov met
recently with this Swedish counterpart Jan Eliasson, the outgoing
president of the General Assembly.

Following Tuesday’s General Assembly postponement, Inner City Press
asked Mr. Eliasson if, in light of his involvement in reaching the
1994 cease-fire, he thinks the GA might have more luck solving the
Nagorno-Karabakh than the OSCE has.

"I hope so," he said. "I’m in favor of an active General Assembly." He
recounted his shuttle diplomacy to Baku in the early 90s. And then
he was gone.

Elsewhere in the UN at Tuesday, the income president of the Security
Council, Greek Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis held a press conference
on the Council’s plan of work for September. Inner City Press asked
when the Council will get the long-awaited briefing on violations
of the arms embargo on Somalia. Amb. Vassilakis responded about a
meeting on September 25, at Kenya’s request, on the idea of the IGAD
force in Somalia. Inner City Press asked what has happened with the
resolution on the Lord’s Resistance Army of which the UK has spoken so
much. It will be up to them to introduce the motion," Amb. Vassilakis
replied. He did not reply on the issue of the outstanding International
Criminal Court indictments against LRA leaders including Joseph Kony
and Vincent Otti.

Inner City Press asked why, on Ivory Coast, the long-delayed report
by the Secretary-General’s expert on the prevention of genocide has
not been released. In this response, Amb.

Vassilakis grew animated, saying that one has to choose between justice
and peace. This implies that the finished report identifies alleged
perpetrators, as pertains to genocide, but is being withheld either
to facilitate peace, which has not come, or as negotiating leverage
over some of the perpetrators. To be continued, throughout the month.

tml

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress