MEDIATORS BLOCK AZERBAIJAN’S UN INITIATIVE
By Gayane Movsissian

Yerkir.am
February 23, 2007

The process of Armenian-Azeri consultations for the settlement of
the Karabagh conflict is frozen at an uncertain point.

The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are preparing for the meeting of the
Armenian and Azeri presidents hoping the meeting can be held in the
beginning of March. However, the Russian Co-Chair Yuri Merzlyakov
confesses there is still no success in getting the sides’ confirmation
for the meeting.

And this is not surprising. Yerevan is obviously tired of the
surprises that Baku offers making its position and demands stricter
every time. The Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian probably
informed the Co-Chairs about this at their meeting in mid-February in
Paris. During these meeting the Minsk Group Co-Chairs Mathew Bryza,
Yuri Merzlyakov and Bernard Fasiet and the OSCE Chairman-in-Office’s
personal representative Andrzey Kasprzyk held consultations on
Karabagh settlement.

Baku seems to be contemplating about the Co-Chairs’ joint statement
with which they presented the results of the consultations. In
this statement the mediators had called on the sides "requesting to
abstain from any actions in any structures, including the UN General
Assembly, that can interfere with the positive developments of the
recent months." The mediators expressed their hope that the sides
would manage to preserve the impetus that has been developed in the
negotiations during the recent months and that the Armenian and Azeri
Foreign Ministers would meet again in the nearest future to overcome
the outstanding differences around the main principles of the Karabagh
settlement agreement.

The mediators’ position was probably a surprise for Baku. Azerbaijan,
together with its VUAM partners, is presently working on a draft
formula on freezing conflicts on the post-Soviet space. VUAM managed
to include this issue on the agenda of the UN General Assembly’s 61st
session last year. But the mediators are now opposing the idea. The
Press Secretary of the Azeri Foreign Ministry Tayir Tagizade stated
that VUAM’s UN initiative does not mean that Azerbaijan is going to
change the format of the negotiations, "but it is necessary to take
into consideration that the UN is not a new forum for discussing the
Karabagh issue. We consider it necessary to continue actively working
with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs in order to explain to them the
constructive impact that the discussion of this issue in the UN can
bring," Tagizade stated.

Baku will probably try to convince one of the Minsk Group Co-Chairs
who will visit the region before the Foreign Ministers’ meeting that
its actions are " constructive". It is not known yet which Co-Chair
will visit the region.

However, the Russian CO-Chair has already stated to the Trend news
agency in Baku that the initiative to take the Karabagh settlement
to the UN is hindering the negotiations process. "Efforts should be
directed at agreeing around the main principles and not deviating in
other directions," he noted.

Besides, Merzlyakov reminded that if the question is discussed in the
UN the Armenian side will demand that Nagorno Karabagh is also involved
in the negotiation process and this is not desirable. The Russian
diplomat who has repeatedly supported the idea of involving Karabagh in
the negotiations did not explain why the mediators believe involvement
of Karabagh in the negotiations process is not desirable. However,
his comment comes to confirm the opinion everything that has taken
place in the so-called Karabagh settlement process is nothing more
than geopolitical manipulations around the issue of Nagorno Karabagh.