EU HOPES FOR MORE PROGRESS ON KARABAKH
By Ruzanna Stepanian
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Dec 18 2006
The European Union hopes that that Armenia and Azerbaijan will keep up
the fresh "momentum" in their efforts to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict despite the upcoming Armenian parliamentary elections,
a senior EU diplomat said late Sunday.
"I hope, of course, that the momentum that we have seen building again
in the peace process over the last few weeks will be maintained,"
the EU’s special representative to the South Caucasus, Peter Semneby,
said before Monday’s talks with Armenian leaders in Yerevan.
Semneby was commenting on President Robert Kocharian’s Friday
statements that all but ended hopes for the signing of a
Armenian-Azerbaijani framework agreement in the coming months.
"Before the elections to the National Assembly, there will be no
active negotiating process," Kocharian said. He claimed that "even
the best" peace deal would be exploited by his political opponents
ahead of the polls due in May.
Azerbaijan seized upon the remarks to accuse Armenia of dragging out
the peace process. "It looks as though the Armenian side is stalling
for time," Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev’s chief foreign policy
aide, Novruz Mamedov, said on Sunday. "The president of Armenia wants
to subordinate the negotiation process to his political interests
and is trying to score points ahead of the upcoming parliamentary
and presidential elections."
Another Azerbaijani official, Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov,
said: "Neither Yerevan, nor the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group
have so far informed Baku about the Armenian side’s intention to
suspend negotiations due to the upcoming elections in Armenia."
The issue was on the agenda of Semneby’s meeting with Kocharian. A
statement by the latter’s press office said the two men discussed
the "latest developments" in the negotiating peace process but gave
no details.
Aliev and Kocharian reported further progress towards Karabakh peace
following their last face-to-face talks held in Belarusian capital
Minsk on November 28. The talks raised fresh hopes for a peaceful
solution to the conflict.
While in Yerevan, Semneby also met with Arkady Ghukasian, president
of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR). The envoy
indicated afterwards that the EU would like to step up direct contacts
with the Karabakh Armenians, saying that they are "very important." "I
regret that until now we have not had sufficient contacts of this
kind," he told reporters.
Semneby also sought to tone down EU criticism of the December
10 referendum in Karabakh on a constitution that declares the
disputed territory an independent state. The bloc as well as two
other pan-European organizations joined Azerbaijan in branding the
vote illegitimate.
Ghukasian on Monday rejected the criticism as "illogical." "I think
that the international community should on the contrary contribute
to the democratic processes that are taking place in Nagorno-Karabakh,"
"That [international] reaction should not be construed as a negative
attitude to democratic processes in Nagorno-Karabakh," Semneby said.
"We realize that there is a high degree of democratic culture in
Nagorno-Karabakh, which is a positive thing.
"As for the referendum, it has other key aspects with which we can
not agree. Namely, the fact that it predetermines issues, including
the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, that need to be resolved during
negotiations."