Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
Feb 14 2008

Karabakh Issue Colours Armenia Poll

Return of former president breaks political consensus on resolving
the conflict.

By Tatul Hakopian in Yerevan (CRS No. 431 14-Feb-08)

The future of Nagorny Karabakh has not previously been a contentious
issue in the domestic politics of Armenia in recent years, but now it
is being bitterly debated in the presidential election campaign,
thanks to the return of the stage of former president Levon
Ter-Petrosian.

On the campaign trail, supporters of Ter-Petrosian and his rival, the
official candidate Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian, are trading
accusations of `sell-outs’ in their respective negotiations with
Azerbaijan to resolve the disputed territory’s status.

Former president Ter-Petrosyan stepped down in 1998 after coming
under pressure from a group of ministers including his successor as
president, Robert Kocharian, and Sarkisian, who opposed his tactics
for resolving the conflict with Azerbaijan.

There is normally an almost full consensus on the Karabakh issue in
Armenian politics, and election campaigns focus instead on domestic
issues such as the economy and corruption.

This campaign has proved to be the exception.

Vahan Hovannisian, who is running as a candidate for the nationalist
Dashnaktsutiun party, diverges from the other eight contenders by
asserting that there can be no negotiations with Azerbaijan until it
signs a non-aggression pact with Armenia .

The main difference between the others is that Ter-Petrosian says
that time is working against Armenia in the Karabakh dispute and
settling it needs to be a priority.

Kocharian and Sarkisian have accused Ter-Petrosian of wanting to
`surrender’ Karabakh in 1998. These allegations have not been
precisely worded, but the implication is that Ter-Petrosian was
willing to compromise on the sovereignty claimed by Nagorny Karabakh.

Opposition member of parliament Shavarsh Kocharian (no relation of
the president), a critic of Ter-Petrosian, said the former
president’s return to the political scene had rekindled the debate on
Karabakh.

`The defeatist attitudes which were characteristic of the previous
governing regime and which were the reason why it left office in 1998
have led to the issue of conflict resolution coming to the fore
again, as this same administration is rearing its head again and is
has not changed its position on Karabakh,’ he said.

Ter-Petrosian’s supporters would vigorously deny that he has a
`defeatist’ attitude. At one rally, the candidate spoke in detail
about the need to make a deal with Azerbaijan and change the status
quo. He has said that time is not on Armenia’s side in the dispute.

Political analyst Aghasi Yenokian said, `It’s natural that with the
return [of Ter-Petrosian] to politics, the issue is being raised
again. It’s only Ter-Petrosian who expresses a real readiness to
settle the Karabakh conflict. All the other candidates would, if
elected, continue the current policy and postpone a resolution.’

On February 9, Ter-Petrosian raised the stakes with his opponents by
directly linking the Karabakh issue with the most traumatic event in
recent domestic political history, the murder of eight prominent
politicians in parliament in October 1999.

At a rally on Yerevan’s Freedom Square, Ter-Petrosian claimed that in
autumn 1999, Kocharian, Sarkisian and current foreign minister Vardan
Oskanian had been ready to sign a deal to exchange the southern
Meghri region of Armenia for Nagorny Karabakh and the adjoining
Lachin district.

Meghri stands between Azerbaijan to its exclave territory
Nakhichevan, while Lachin connects Armenia and Karabakh. The idea of
a swap has been dubbed the `Goble Plan’ after the American scholar
Paul Goble who first suggested it.

On the same day, the Haikakan Zhamanak newspaper which is supporting
Ter-Petrosian’s election bid published the text of an unofficial
document produced by the American, French and Russian co-chairs of
the Minsk Group – the mediators in the dispute – in autumn 1999, in
which the first point states that Meghri should be exchanged for
Lachin.

`I am making public a fact that has been hidden for ten years – a
great conspiracy against Armenia – which Kocharian, Sarkisian and
Oskanian have always denied,’ Ter-Petrosian told the crowd which
listened in absolute silence. `This is the question of exchanging of
Meghri for Lachin, through which Armenia would have lost its
35-kilometre border with Iran. Today this conspiracy has been
exposed.’

The candidate then went on to make an even more explosive allegation,
linking this plan with the attack of October 27, 1999, in which eight
leading politicians including the then prime minister Vazgen
Sarkisian and speaker of parliament Karen Demirchian, were killed.

`This document will be the most important clue to solving the October
27 [murders],’ said Ter-Petrosian.

`This conspiracy failed thanks to two people – Karen Demirchian and
Vazgen Sarkisian, who exposed the plot at a session of the security
council, and paid the highest price for it, their lives.’

The Kocharian administration moved quickly to dismiss Ter-Petrosian’s
allegations, with presidential press secretary Viktor Soghomonian
calling the claims `an electoral gambit’.

`The radical opposition, having exhausted all attempts to discredit
the authorities, has begun talking about this alleged peace plan,’
said Soghomonian. `This started in 2002. In actual fact we are
talking about the so-called `Goble Plan’ which was never a topic for
discussion in the negotiations over Karabakh. It’s obvious that
today’s publication has the aim of heading off a new discussion about
the very peculiar approach that ex-president Levon Ter-Petrosian took
to resolving the conflict.’

Following the shootings in parliament, Kocharian said he had rejected
the idea of a territorial exchange. Speaking on television in
February 2000, he said there had indeed been a plan to exchange land
but `this was not accepted by me’.

Foreign minister Oskanian angrily rejected Ter-Petrosian’s statements
on the Karabakh issue.

`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, it becomes clear to me that
Ter-Petrosyan will stop at nothing,’ said the minister.

Tatul Hakopian is a commentator on Public Radio in Armenia and
correspondent for the New York newspaper The Armenian Reporter.