NKR MFA EXPRESSED ITS BEWILDERMENT WITH THE EUROPEAN INTERNATIONAL STRUCTURES’ RESPONSE TO A REFERENDUM HELD IN KARABAKH

DeFacto Agency, Armenia
Dec 14 2006

The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic MFA expressed its bewilderment with the
European international structures’ response to a referendum held in the
NKR. According to the NKR MFA, by their statement the international
structures have attempted to cast doubts on the very fact of the
possibility of the Nagorno-Karabakh people’s being in legal field.

The Karabakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ official statement runs,
in part, "the Ministry notes the referendum is a new stage on the way
of firming democratic principles in the country’s Main Law and the
development of legislation as a whole and aims to give an impulse
to the formation and development of new, more liberal principles
in the sphere of state governance, as well as to the process of
civil society’s formation. In this connection the attempts of
the European instances, an architecture of which is based on such
pillars as democracy and superiority of law, to ignore and neglect
the democratic and legislative processes taking place in the Nagorno-
Karabakh look at least strange.

At the same time, the Ministry expresses its conviction that the
Constitution’s adoption will in no way hamper the international
mediators’ constructive attempts to settle the Nagorno- Karabakh
conflict peacefully.

If one follows the logic of the last statements, according to which
the constitutional referendum in the NKR will hamper the negotiations,
one can conclude that adopting the Constitution of the Azerbaijan
Republic at a referendum in 1995 and amendments made to it in 2002
the official Baku pursued namely such an object – to deliver a blow to
the negotiations held those years. So, why the European structures did
not criticize Azerbaijan’s policy then? It is not the first case for
the last 15 years, when the representatives of separate international
organizations respond asymmetrically to the analogous procedures
taking place in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan. The
international community’s role in influencing on the character of the
processes in the conflict zone has always been great. Only the fact
that in 1991 the international community unilaterally recognized the
results of a referendum on independence in Azerbaijan, but refused
to recognize an analogues referendum in the Nagorno Karabakh, which
had been held before it, encouraged Azerbaijan’s pretensions to the
Nagorno-Karabakh, which became the reason of Azerbaijan’s aggression
against the NKR.

The constitutional referendum in the NKR cannot predetermine the
outcome of the consultations on the conflict solution being held
under the OSCE MG aegis. Moreover, a question arises whether the
position on territorial integrity voiced by Azerbaijan permanently
and the unitary of Azerbaijani state fixed in the AR Constitution
are the factors predetermining and violating the logic of the Minsk
process, which assumed the right to self-determination along with
other principles as a basis.

The NKR Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses hope that the European
structures guided by their fundamental principles will reconsider
their preconceived attitude to the democratic procedures taking place
in the Nagorno-Karabakh", the NKR MFA Press Center reports.