Mediamax News Agency, Armenia
Feb 3 2007

Kosovo scenario to influence Karabakh settlement

Any decision on the status of Kosovo will have an impact on the talks
on the settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict, the Armenian
news agency Mediamax has said in its weekly analytical edition.
Although these two conflicts have own peculiarities, Kosovo may
become a precedent as seen by one of the mediator countries, Russia.
The agency however criticized the latter for "double standards" with
regard to Nagornyy Karabakh and other conflicts in the post-Soviet
area. The following is an excerpt from report in English by Armenian
news agency Mediamax headlined "Russia, the USA, Kosovo and Nagornyy
Karabakh"; subheadings inserted editorially:

On 2 February, the special representative of the UN
Secretary-General, Martti Ahtisaari, presented his plan on the
settlement of the Kosovo conflict. According to the presented
formula, Kosovo will not become automatically independent, but will
gain many rights of an independent state, in particular, the right to
sign agreements with other states and to get membership in
international organizations. It is expected that in February Belgrade
and Pristina will prepare comments and proposals, which Ahtisaari
will try to include in his plan. The next round of consultations is
to take place on 13 February, and in March, the document will be sent
to the UN Security Council, which will determine the future of
Kosovo.

It is obvious that the discussions of the Kosovo problem in the
Security Council will not be facile, just taking into consideration
the fact that Russia and the USA stick to diametrically opposite
stances. Moscow thinks that the Kosovo decision will become a
precedent, and Washington strongly rejects that prospect.

No return to previous status both in Kosovo and Karabakh

The Armenian authorities openly declare that the Kosovo independence,
proclaimed in this or that wording, is an expected event, at the same
time noting that they do not expect it to have direct influence on
the process of the Karabakh conflict settlement.

[Passage omitted: the Armenian president and foreign minister have
spoken on the issue]

We should note that there is really no sense drawing direct
comparison of the conflicts in Nagornyy Karabakh and Kosovo, because
of a number of reasons. At the same time, it is obvious that a number
of approaches to the settlement of the situation in Kosovo can be
referred to Nagornyy Karabakh also – not wishing to blindly copy the
reached solutions, but basing on common sense.

For instance, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and
Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried stated this January that while
determining the Kosovo status, there could be no return to the
situation that was present before 1999. We believe that no one will
argue that in the case with Nagornyy Karabakh, there cannot be a
return to the situation which was before 1988, that is, there can be
no return to the autonomy. The difference lies in the fact that as
opposed to Kosovo, they do not state it openly here: neither the
mediators, nor especially the Azerbaijani leadership.

OSCE mediators differ on Kosovo "precedent" for Karabakh

The fact that the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs have different opinions
as to the "precedent nature" of Kosovo, is proved by their last visit
to the region. Answering the questions of the journalists after the
meeting with the leader of Nagornyy Karabakh, Arkadi Ghukasyan,
Russian co-chair Yuriy Merzlyakov stated that the decision on Kosovo
"will make a precedent, as for the first time in the European
territory the case concerns a former autonomy". However, the French
and the US co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Bernard Fassier and
Matthew Bryza, opposed using the Kosovo settlement model as a
universal one. "Each conflict has its peculiarities and complications
and for each of them a certain solution should be found," Matthew
Bryza stated.

[Passage omitted: comments of the same nature by the co-chair
countries]

At the same time, we should note that, insisting during the year of
2006 on the "precedent nature" of the Kosovo case, Russia continually
drew analogies with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, more seldom with the
Dniester region and almost not once with Nagornyy Karabakh. In this
case, Moscow can also be suspected of double standards; as such
analogies were used by Russia mainly to put pressure on Georgia and
Moldova. A circumstantial evidence of that can be the fact that in
the whole course of 2006, the Russian Foreign Ministry not once in
this or that form expressed support for the elections and the
referendums in South Ossetia, Abkhazia and the Dniester region.
However, it did not show such an attitude as to the referendum on the
constitution in Nagornyy Karabakh.

No matter what the decision on the Kosovo status is, it will
undoubtedly have a direct or indirect influence on the settlement of
the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict. However, the most important in the
given situation is that the discussion on the degree of this
influence does not distract the sides of the conflict from the very
talks. An experience shows that very often the sides just look for an
occasion to avoid the real negotiations. Kosovo can perfectly become
such an occasion.