RA FM: MILITARY WAY OF KARABAKH CONFLICT SETTLEMENT IS TRIED AND FAILED

ARMINFO News Agency, Armenia
September 26, 2006 Tuesday

The Government of Azerbaijan has lost the moral right to advance
proposals regarding assurance of security and future of Karabakh, not
to mention the tutorship over the NKR people, RA FM Vardan Oskanyan
said during the UN General Assembly session.

"Azerbaijan did not behave responsibly or morally with the people
of Nagorno Karabakh, who it considered to be its own citizens. They
sanctioned massacres in urban areas, far from Nagorno Karabakh; they
bombed and displaced more than 300,000 Armenians; they unleashed the
military; and after they lost the war and accepted a ceasefire, they
proceeded to destroy all traces of Armenians on their territories. In
the most cynical expression of such irresponsibility, this last
December, a decade after the fighting had stopped, they completed the
final destruction and removal of thousands of massive hand-sculpted
cross-stones – medieval Armenian tombstones elaborately carved and
decorated. Such destruction, in an area with no Armenians, at a
distance from Nagorno Karabakh and any conflict areas, is a callous
demonstration that Azerbaijan’s attitude toward tolerance, human
values, cultural treasures, cooperation or even peace, has not changed.

One cannot blame us for thinking that Azerbaijan is not ready or
interested in a negotiated peace. Yet, having rejected the other two
compromise solutions that have been proposed over the last 8 years,
they do not want to be accused of rejecting the peace plan on the
table today. Therefore, they are using every means available –
from state violence to international maneuvers – to try to bring
the Armenians to do the rejecting. But Armenia is on record: we have
agreed to each of the basic principles in the document that’s on the
table today. Yet, in order to give this or any document a chance,
Azerbaijan can’t think, or pretend to think, that there is still
a military option. There isn’t. The military option is a tried and
failed option. Compromise and realism are the only real options. The
path that Nagorno Karabakh has chosen for itself over these two
decades is irreversible. It succeeded in ensuring its self- defense,
it proceeded to set up self-governance mechanisms, and it controls
its borders and its economy. Formalizing this process is a necessary
step toward stability in our region. Dismissing, as Azerbaijan does,
all that’s happened in the last 20 years and petulantly insisting that
things must return to the way they were, is not just unrealistic,
but disingenuous. Nagorno Karabakh is not a cause. It is a place,
an ancient place, a beautiful garden, with people who have earned the
right to live in peace and without fear. We ask for nothing more. We
expect nothing less", V. Oskanyan said.