US STATE DEPARTMENT: WANTED TO MAKE IT BETTER, BUT THE RESULT WAS AS USUAL

PanARMENIAN.Net
28.04.2007 GMT+04:00

If Washington doesn’t want to treat Azerbaijan badly, it means Baku
is of great importance to it. After all Baku means a lot; oil, gas,
a possible bridgehead for attacking Iran, and a corridor connecting
with Central Asia.

Documents concerning the home policy of any country are considered
final and are not subject to revision with the exception of the cases
when their content put the basic priorities or security of the country
at risk. This was accepted in the USA too; in any case it had been
so until 2006. The stumbling block to the issue became the articles
where the diversities in Armenia’s and Azerbaijan’s opinions over
the Karabakh Conflict became obvious.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ In fact it is not that appropriate to speak about the
conflict in the report about human rights, but that’s not the point. It
should be mentioned that the original version of the text (which so
remained the final version) contained the Azerbaijani viewpoint on
the conflict issue, namely; "Armenia has occupied Nagorno-Karabakh,
which belongs to Azerbaijan". After Armenia announced that the text
doesn’t comply with the truth, the wording was changed, this, however,
made things less comprehensible. "The Armenian armed forces occupy the
great part of the Azeri territory, adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh. The
RA official establishments declare that the Republic hasn’t occupied
Nagorno-Karabakh particularly." Roughly speaking everything is left
almost unchangeable. However, here Azerbaijan threatened the USA with
rejection to participate in the security commission. Here an idea
comes forward, if the USA doesn’t want to treat Azerbaijan badly, it
means Baku is of great importance to it. After all Baku means a lot;
oil, gas, a possible bridgehead for attacking Iran, and a corridor
connecting with Central Asia. And what can Armenia offer especially now
when the elections are very close and, to the greatest disappointment
of the USA, they will be held with no violations and no "colorful"
revolution is predicted; even the opposition is calm and has started
to think about its country’s future, with the exception of one or
two oppositional groups which do not really make any difference. So
it would be better to let Armenia solve its problems on its own.

However, the truth is that it is not possible to ignore the US State
Department’s report, which however was done by Armenia. The RA Ministry
of Foreign Affairs is being rather reasonable to believe that the
issue of changing the wording of the US State Department’s report has
not been treated seriously from the very beginning. "It’s all right;
they will change it again. The most important thing is that the USA
admitted its mistake," declared acting press-secretary of RA Ministry
of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Karapetyan.

Everything is not that bad, except for the long and confusing interview
of the OSCE co-chairman from the USA, Deputy Assistant Secretary
for European and Eurasian Affairs Matthew Bryza, given to AzerTadj
agency. "In the preliminary version of the report the statement was
incorrect. Taking into account the present phase of the negotiations
on Nagorno-Karabakh issue, it was our mistake. Let’s take a look at it
once again; it is stated in the correction that the Armenian forces
have occupied the territories; however the RA officials announce
that they haven’t occupied Nagorno-Karabakh. As you can see, we only
indicated what the Armenian side had stated. At present we are at
the stage of peace negotiations on Nagorno-Karabakh issue, when the
parties are leading talks regarding its future status. This process,
with the assistance of the OSCE Minsk Group, will be carried out in
a peaceful way, on the basis of international principles, such as UN
Security Council Resolution and OSCE Regulation.

That is why, if we, like in the preliminary version of the report,
announce that Armenia has occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, the given
statement will surpass the results of the negotiations regarding
the status. We can’t define the results; they will be reached as
the outcome of the negotiations. That is why I repeat that it was
our mistake, but we corrected it. Let me mention that we didn’t fall
under anyone’s influence.

It is said that we did it under the pressure of some Diaspora
groups. This is not true." However Bryza’s statement didn’t make it
clear when America made that mistake; first or the second time? If
the mistake was in the first statement, everything is clear, if the
mistake was in the second one; then it’s even more confusing – what
did they correct? The American diplomat announced that there will
be no more corrections and here we agree with him. If there was no
correction in the first statement, everything would be quite clear –
this is the USA’s position. Then followed the confusion. A report
can hardly be considered a step forward in the field of human right’s
protection. This concept has lately gained a more political sense.

"PanARMENIAN.Net" analytical department

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress