ARMENIAN MINISTER DENIES EX-PRESIDENT’S ALLEGATIONS OVER KARABAKH SETTLEMENT

Mediamax
Feb 13 2008
Armenia

Yerevan, 13 February: Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan
has described as "immoral" the behaviour of presidential candidate
Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who speculates in the process of the election
campaign with the use of the so-called "Meghri variant" of the Karabakh
settlement. The Armenian foreign minister said this on the Shant TV
channel late on 12 February.

"What Ter-Petrosyan is doing is a cheap pre-election trick, this is
immoral. And when he tries to relate his statements to the terrorist
act in the Armenian parliament [in October 1999], it becomes clear
to me that Ter-Petrosyan will stop at nothing, and we will yet have
the chance to make sure of that," Vardan Oskanyan said.

The minister stressed that the document, which was published last
week by Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper and which Levon Ter-Petrosyan
referred to during his latest rally, has never been a topic of the
settlement negotiation.

"The idea of exchanging Meghri for Nagornyy Karabakh belongs to retired
US diplomat Paul Gobble, the roots of which are in the early 1990s. I
clearly remember that in 1994 the given idea was discussed with the
participation of Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who stated at
one of the meetings that the proposal could be interesting if Armenia
also gained the north part of Naxcivan [Azerbaijani exclave]. However,
I do not contend that Ter-Petrosyan was ready to exchange Meghri for
Nagornyy Karabakh, do I," Vardan Oskanyan said.

The foreign minister said that in the course of 10 years of
[incumbent Armenian President] Robert Kocharyan’s rule, the OSCE
Minsk Group co-chairs [Russia, USA and France who mediate a solution
to the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict] made three official proposals
on the settlement: the "common state" conception; the plan which
was discussed in Key West; and the latest proposal based on the
"Prague principles". "I declare with all responsibility that in
neither of those proposals there is any notion of handing Meghri over
to Azerbaijan. Being the chief negotiator from the Armenian side,
I never held such talks," Vardan Oskanyan stressed.

According to the foreign minister, in various periods of time, various
plans appeared on the settlement, the authors of which were independent
states or groups of people. "I have many such proposals in my box, but
this does not mean that all of them became topics for negotiations,"
Vardan Oskanyan said. He made it clear that the document which Levon
Ter-Petrosyan refers to is a proposal belonging to this very category.

"The Armenian side repulsed with such determination all the
conversation on Meghri that after 2000 no-one dared to put forward
this topic anymore," the Armenian foreign minister said.

Vardan Oskanyan flatly denied statements alleging that on the eve
of the terrorist act in the Armenian parliament in 1999 there was
discord among the leadership of the country on the Karabakh issue.

"There was nothing of that kind, and I very well know what the
relationship between Robert Kocharyan and Vazgen Sarkisyan [former
Armenian prime minister who was killed in the parliament attack]
was like. I believe that it is time to let the dead in peace and hold
discussions among living people," the Armenian foreign minister noted
with bitterness.