AZG Armenian Daily #222, 01/12/2007
OSCE Ministerial Council
MAMEDYAROV PREACHES PEACE AFTER YESTERDAY’S WARLIKE SPEECHES
"With a great anxiety I note that in despite of three year long
negotiations on the level of Presidents and Foreign Ministers we are
still facing Armenia’s efforts of concealing the occupation of
Azerbaijani territories and the policy of ethnic purge on those
territories," – this phrase was not taken from another groundless
publication of the Azeri mass media, but >From the statement of the
Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, Elmar Mamedyarov, spoken at the OSCE
Foreign Ministers Council, Madrid.
Being nothing new in itself, such idea, expressed publicly on the
level of OSCE, can hardly benefit the Azerbaijani authorities, as the
party eager of unleashing another armed conflict is Azerbaijan.
Moreover, the previous day Mamedyarov had stated that he supports the
Azerbaijani Defense Minister’s idea of restarting the war, while it
has been stressed for many times that the Karabakh crisis must never
be settled with armed force.
It is even more remarkable that to Mamedyarov’s opinion "the Armenian
authorities make dangerous efforts of representing the Karabakh issue
as a religious conflict and as a confrontation of Christians and
Muslims". In this case it seems like Mamedyarov saw the smoke but knew
not whither it came.
As a matter of fact, Prime Minister of Armenia Serge Sarkisian,
answering the question of "Los Angeles Times" whether the conflict in
Karabakh has religious elements or no, said that it really does, but
he did not gave the conflict a wholly religious implication. However,
to Mamedyarov’s opinion, Armenia has also "intensified the
exploitation of Azerbaijan’s nature resources, which does not aid the
negotiation process". It is amusing that the Azerbaijani Foreign
Minister fails to distinguish the Republics of Armenia and of
Nagorno-Karabakh. Otherwise, how could he utter such phrases?
>From the aforementioned "facts" Mamedyarov made the following
conclusion, "Such policy is doomed, as Azerbaijan will never accept
the loss of a single centimeter of its territory. The Armenian side
should forget about its hopeless efforts and start peace negotiations,
so as we can achieve a peaceful settlement, which would benefit both
the peoples, living side by side".
Loud phrases on democracy and self-governments, spoken by the
Azerbaijani representative, cannot be taken seriously, as Azerbaijan
has a number of serious inner problems with freedom and human rights
and on the other hand Nagorno-Karabakh has a 15 years’ experience of
self-government as a republic. Nevertheless Mamedyarov declared, "We
should focus on providing conditions for the Armenian and Azeri
populations of Karabakh to take part in the global discussion of the
national self-determination issue in the frames of the state of
Azerbaijan".
Elmar Mamedyarov, who was speaking of such high humanitarian values
and was reluctant to shift the Karabakh conflict settlement to other
spheres, later on contradicted his own words, mentioning the GUAM
initiatives. Seemingly he was forgetful of OSCE Minsk Group’s
disapproval of the Karabakh issue’s discussion in UN and GUAM formats,
alongside with the conflicts in Dniester, South Osetia and Abkhazia.
By A. Haroutiunian, translated by A.M.