THE GIN COMES OUT OF THE BOTTLE
by Vardan Grigoryan

Hayots Ashkharh
Jan 25 2008
Armenia

New debates at the PACE winter session

The debate on the Kosovo issue during the [2008] winter session of
the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe [PACE] and the
resolution, adopted on its base on 22 January, is a manifestation of
the total impotence of the European community on reaching a coordinated
compromise on the status of this territory.

It was not occasional that on the day of the resolution’s adoption
Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci stated that the deadline for the
proclamation of Kosovo’s independence was agreed with Washington and
Brussels and will be announced in the nearest future. Thus, although
the PACE has called to continue the negotiations based on Resolution
1244 of the UN Security Council, even Russia, which has authorized
such an amendment to the document [1244 resolution] adopted by the
PACE, realizes that it is no more possible to stop the process.

The situation

The Armenian and Azerbaijani delegations, which participated in the
PACE winter session, clashed at a different time presenting to the
international community serious and essential differences in their
approaches.

Unlike the MP representing Azerbaijan, Qanira Pasayeva, who once
again reiterated as a parrot Azerbaijan’s simple point of view that
"there is no common grounds between Kosovo and Nagornyy Karabakh,
and these conflicts differ by their roots, history, causes", the
Armenian delegation this time selected a totally new strategy of
debating and did not reply to the idle talk of the Azerbaijani side.

[Passage omitted: details of the debate]

The recent statements on the issue voiced from the PACE rostrum by the
Armenian parliamentary delegation, the structure of which has been
significantly strengthened, differ qualitatively from the tactic of
simply wrangling with the Azerbaijani colleagues, in which our side
has usually lost over the last years. This time the blow was aimed at
the goals [of the Azerbaijani delegation] themselves, and we believe
the failure of separating the "Kosovo precedent" from the Earth and
presenting it as some unknown, alien phenomenon has become obvious
for participants of the PACE winter session.

It is more important that such statements on the issue by the
Armenian side were voiced on the eve of the proclamation of Kosovo’s
independence , when the international community, on one side, is trying
to create an impression of the continuation of the negotiations,
but on the other hand, realizes extremely well that it will have no
other way except for recognizing Kosovo’s independence in the future.

Kosovo’s precedent becomes the peculiar gin and the inevitability of
it coming out of the bottle forces the European Union to think from
today about preserving the unity of its political positions.

Due to the maturing of the "Kosovo precedent", we are on the eve of
radical breakthroughs in the international legal practice, which will
provide new and unprecedented opportunities for developing a certain
model for the settlement of conflicts in the post-Soviet area.