LEVON TER-PETROSIAN: IN ORDER TO OVERCOME THE DEADLOCK ON THE KARABAKH CONFLICT ISSUE, IT IS NECESSARY TO RETURN TO THE PREVIOUS FORMAT OF NEGOTIATIONS

Noyan Tapan
Oct 26, 2007

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 26, NOYAN TAPAN. In the past 10 years, the Armenian
authorities have done everything to create a desperate situation
around settlement of the Karabakh problem, the first Armenian president
Levon Ter-Petrosian stated at the October 26 rally.

According to him, the document proposed by the OSCE Minsk Group
co-chairs, to which the Armenian authorities have agreed, is nothing
else than the stage-by-stage option rejected by them 10 years
ago. "Thus, the current Armenian authorities have secretly agreed to
a program they presented as a defeatist and treacherous one at the
time," L. Ter-Petrosian noted.

In his words, this position of the Armenian authorities can have
two explanations: either it is their next in turn "bluff" in order
to delay the solution of the problem, or they finally realized that
only by using the stage-by-stage option, it is possible to settle
the diametrically opposite positions of the conflict parties – both
in the past and now. As he put it, the parties have allegedly come to
an agreement on the document, and only a few points remain, on which
there are still differences. However, according to L. Ter-Petrosian,
these points may have such a principal character that the issue will
remain unsettled for a long time. "Pinning its hopes on oil dollars,
Azerbaijan does not hurry at all. For some unknown reason, Armenia does
not manifest a will to solve the issue," L. Ter-Petrosian noted. He
added that although it has been declared that the sides have come to
a 90% agreement on the document, there are grounds to suspect that
by his habit, Robert Kocharian will not sign this document (in order
to avoid responsibility), laying the burden of responsibility on the
next president.

L. Ter-Petrosian stated that a deadlock situation has formed around the
Karabakh problem, and in addition to R. Kocharian, among those guilty
of creating it are the RA foreign minister Vartan Oskanian, and the
former NKR president Arkady Ghukasian, who has yielded the mandate of
Karabakh as a full and equal party to negotiations to Armenia. He noted
that the way out of this situation is a difficult but definite one:
in order to overcome the deadlock on the Karabakh conflict problem,
it is necessary to return to the previous negotiating format, in
which Nagorno Karabakh was presented as a full and equal party.

L. Ter-Petrosian pointed out the necessity to radically change the
Armenian authorities’ destructive policy aimed at postponing rather
than solving the problem. According to him, it is necessary to clean
"own barns" and to prevent reproduction of the current criminal regime
by means of a powerful national wave, to restore constitutional
order in Armenia, to fight against corruption and create a legal,
free and just state. "Everybody must realize that the future of
Nagorno Karabakh depends on Armenia’s might," he said.