ARMENIAN FM: KOSOVO, KARABAKH, NOT SO DIFFERENT

B92
Jan 9 2008
Serbia

YEREVAN, BAKU — The Armenian chief of diplomacy drew parallels
between the region of Nagorno Karabakh and Kosovo, reports say.

An Azerbaijani news website quoted Vardan Oskanyan, who was speaking
in a news conference Wednesday, as saying that the disputed region
and Kosovo conflicts have "several common features."

Nagorno Karabakh, an Azerbaijani territory, is inhabited by majority
Armenians, and is often referred to as being a de facto independent
republic. But Baku is refusing to grant the territory independence,
and so is the international community.

"Each conflict is specific in nature, but at a definite stage the legal
and ethnic features of the conflicts are similar. The Karabakh and
Kosovo conflicts also have common features", Today.az cited Oskanyan
as saying.

The Armenian foreign policy chief is also quoted as saying that
"ethnic cleansing and crimes are among those common features."

"While ethnic cleansing and crimes have been prevented in Kosovo by
NATO and the international community, Armenia prevented these events
towards the people of Karabakh", Oskanyan said.

He said in case of Kosovo the incident became known on the
international arena, "while the ethnic cleansing and crimes in the
so-called Nagorno Karabakh conflict remained the local problem and
were not recognized by the world community," the website reported.

Meanwhile, in words eerily reminiscent of those heard from officials
involved in the ongoing Kosovo status crisis, Azerbaijani President
Ilham Aliyev said his country "will never allow the creation of a
second Armenian state on its territory."

"We will never allow the creation of the second Armenian state in the
territory of Azerbaijan. If Armenians residing in Nagorno-Karabakh
want to decide their fate, they must do it basing on the principle
of Azerbaijan`s territorial integrity, but if they do not want to do
this, they must leave Nagorno-Karabakh and create their second state
in another place. Anyway, the creation of the second Armenian state
in Azerbaijan’s territory is impossible," Aliyev was quoted.

"We will never make a concession concerning our territorial
integrity. Azerbaijan`s territorial integrity is inviolable; the
Nagorno-Karabakh will never be given independence. The leadership
and the people of Azerbaijan will never agree with that, and
the international community will never recognize independence of
Nagorno-Karabakh. We are holding talks in this direction," Aliyev
added.

The question of whether granting Kosovo, a province of Serbia,
independence, would spur other disputed regions worldwide to follow
suit, unilaterally declare independence and expect the international
community to recognize such acts, has been at the heart of some EU
members’ opposition to allow the province to gain independence.

And while the United States, and the largest EU countries maintain
that Kosovo’s independence would not constitute for a precedent,
Russia, and some EU members, such as Romania, Cyprus and Slovakia,
claim the opposite.