THE DANGER OF REVANCHIST SENTIMENTS
Vardan Grigoryan

Hayots Ashkharh
Daily paper
Friday 13 July 2007

GUAM Tries to Have Check-Ups

On July 10 Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry made a new announcement of
GUAM Foreign Ministers’ Council, veiled by the thunderous poster "
Towards Democracy and Economic Development", regarding July 19 NKR
presidential elections.

There seems nothing strange for ex USSR "small empires", Georgia,
Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova, having joint in the before mentioned
organization, to remember about their soviet borders.

But if the authors of the announcement state beforehand about the
illegitimacy of the forthcoming NKR presidential elections, evaluating
the logic of the "accomplished fact" as an attempt to hamper the
process of the regulation of Karabakh issue, a question arises – What
a new "accomplished fact" is going to be revealed by the Armenian party
on July 19, when NKR has a 16 years’ history of an independent state.

During those 16 years numerous and various elections have been held in
NKR and the authors that consider these elections "accomplished fact"
should have put up with the reality.

If according to GUAM Foreign Ministers’ Council, "Legitimate elections
can be held in Nagorno Karabakh only after the integration of the
region in the political, legal and social system of the Republic of
Azerbaijan and the forced re-inhabitants will have the opportunity to
return to their lands, transportation communication and the peaceful
co-existence of Armenian and Azerbaijani communities will be restored",
then from the point of view of the Norms of International Law we have
to clarify what do they mean by the return of the people, having been
self-determined 16 years before, to the country that doesn’t exist
at present.

First: if this is an attempt to apply the principle of territorial
integrity then GUAM countries must speak about Azerbaijani SSR rather
than "Azerbaijani Republic", because the "territorial integrity" of
the first one has been guaranteed in the framework of another state –
the USSR.

Second: even after such a miracle GUAM countries can’t insist that the
principle of the territorial integrity can be unconditionally imposed
on self-determined people. As OSCE Minsk Group American co-President
Mathew Braise recently reminded Azerbaijanis, " There is no universal
resolution or an internationally approved approach on this occasion."

So how can GUAM Foreign Ministers’ Council even dream about the
supremacy of "territorial integrity", in case when even the US official
representative confesses that such supremacy doesn’t exist?

It turns out that on July 19 NKR doesn’t even need to make the
compulsion of the "accomplished fact" and the circulated principle
of the "territorial integrity" is vulnerable from the historical and
legal point of view.

The only thing left to do is to clarify what pushed GUAM countries to
touch upon an issue that is beyond their jurisdiction. Do some people
think that thus they can hamper the process of July 19 presidential
elections in Nagorno Karabakh. We don’t think so. It is also not
essential what GUAM countries think about the attitude of the
international community towards NKR.

That essential and really dangerous point is that an organization
has appeared veiled by the thunderous slogan "Towards Democracy
and Economic Development" that advocates the revachist idea of
re-establishing soviet administrative territories.

While everyone knows that international law and revanchist sentiments
are incompatible. Because the first one sooner or later recognizes
the existing reality and the second one tries to turn it back not
for the sake of bright future but because of the sad and bloody past.