FIRST STAGE OF THE CRISIS – OVERCOME
Vardan Grigoryan

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
30 Sep 2008
Armenia

The bilateral and multilateral meetings held in New York on September
24-26 sketched the main tendencies of the developments expected in
the Karabakh peace process in the course of the upcoming months. And
those tendencies will become more clear and concrete following the
presidential elections to be held in Azerbaijan and the United States
on October 15 and November 4 respectively.

Prior to the above-mentioned meeting of the Armenian, Turkish and
Azeri Foreign Ministers, the OSCE Minsk Group sharply increased the
activeness of its work.

Before the start of the negotiations in New York, the three Co-Chairs
again gathered together, and warmly hugged and kissed one another in
front of the cameras like lovers who had separated from each other
temporarily.

This means that before the Armenian, Turkish and Azeri Foreign
Ministers’ meeting in New York, the OSCE Minsk Group intended to
show everyone that it was actually the only body responsible for the
Karabakh peace process.

And that intention became a reality due to the meeting with the
Armenian President on November 4, the repeated attempts of bringing
the Armenian and Azeri Foreign Minister close to the "cross bar" on
September 26 and finally, the joint statement of the Co-Chairs. The
adoption of such document testifies to the fact that t he format of
the OSCE Minsk Group is not only maintained but also applied.

Hence, during their meeting in New York, the Armenian, Turkish and
Azeri Foreign Ministers focused only on the discussion of the "regional
developments" and Turkey’s recent initiative in that connection. In
such conditions, it was quite natural that Azerbaijan, which had
great expectations of the meeting, would initiate the successive
propaganda provocation.

So, "Bakiliar.az" Web site recently disseminated the false information
that Armenia, in the person of its Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan,
has allegedly agreed to continue the talks in the trilateral format,
welcoming Turkey’s role as a mediator in the process.

This was immediately followed by MFA Spokesman T. Balayan’s September
27 statement, "The settlement of the conflict is possible only within
the frameworks of the OSCE Minsk Group, without the mediation of
other parties."

As regards the rumors (circulated by the Mass Media of Baku) that
Yerevan has agreed to Turkey’s role as a mediator in the Karabakh
settlement process, T. Balayan characterized this as something
"absurd".

The fact that no progress was observed as a result of the Foreign
Ministers’ trilateral meeting in New York was yesterday confirmed by
President Serge Sargsyan as well. "A meeting was held, but there is
no concrete result", the P resident said.

While during the press-conference held in New York, the Turkish
President reiterated his country’s "traditional" standpoint, "If the
existing problems between the two countries are resolved within the
frameworks of the Armenian-Turkish dialogue, extending the cooperation
and opening the border will become possible." That’s to say, Baku
and Ankara anticipated Russia to approve the Turkish-Azerbaijani
policy of imposing unilateral conditions upon Armenia. And because
nothing of the kind happened, everything is now returning to the same
"starting point".

All this testifies to the primitiveness and unilateral character of the
Armenian-Turkish dialogue and the viewpoints and assessments recently
expressed in our reality with regard to the expediency of the Armenian,
Turkish and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers’ meeting in New York. And
the reality is that every time there is any deterioration in the
Russian-American or the Russia-West relations, Armenia becomes faced
with the danger of the formation of a new "Lenin-Atatyurk" alliance.

To be able to resist such critical moments and demonstrate the required
flexibility, we should set aside all our narrow party interests and
primitive attempts of taking advantage of the threat faced by the
country and realize that the same situation may be repeated in the
near future as well.

Armenia should by all means have active mechanisms20for counteracting
the "Turkish card" raffled by Azerbaijan because the possible
deterioration in the Russian-American relations may really lead to
our country’s encirclement by Turkey and Azerbaijan.