FREEZING REMAINS THE ONLY OPTION
Karen Nahapetyan
Hayots Ashkhar Daily
25 Oct 2008
Armenia
As we know, the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group are planning
to visit the region next week. "Now the Co-Chairs intend to resume
their work in a more active manner," representative of France Bernard
Fassier announced.
And we hear statements on the speedy settlement of the Karabakh
conflict every day.
In our opinion, the elaboration of any option for mutual concessions
is becoming impossible, considering the fact that the societies
and political forces of both Armenia and Azerbaijan are unprepared
for finding ways towards the settlement of the Karabakh conflict,
implementing their tasks and perceiving and brining to life the
solutions proposed by the Co-Chairs.
That’s why, all the attempts of integrating the region through a speedy
settlement of the conflict are, from the outset, doomed to failure.
Integration remains possible only as far as the freezing of the
conflict and the maintenance of status quo are concerned.
Today, the speedy solution is unfeasible due to the existence of the
mutually exclusive signals and the impossibility of any consensus over
any concrete option both inside Armenia and on the Armenian-Azerbaijani
front.
At the same time, the current geo-political developments make the
prospect of resuming a new Armenian-Azerbaijani war impossible. That
war may break out only in case some of the mediators try to strengthen
their country’s positions in the region, using the "settlement"
as a pretext.
In such situation, the bandage upon the unhealed wound turns out to
be the only remedy, because it will definitely come off and cause a
new bleeding both in case of the settlement of the conflict and the
resumption of a new war.
The issues of returning some territories in exchange for opening the
roads and clarifying the NKR status may be solved through mutual
concessions only in case the region is already integrated to some
bigger and more stable system which will be able to impose the rules
of its game upon the parties.
In conditions of the absence of such system, the universal settlement
of the conflict becomes impossible. Hence, the freezing of the conflict
is the only way that creates stable and safe conditions for carrying
out integration processes.
In Armenia, there is almost no serious anti-thesis to the idea of
freezing the conflict, because the longer the realities achieved as
a result of the war are maintained, the more they will be taken into
consideration by everybody.
And in Azerbaijan, this idea is one of the serious guarantees for
maintaining the positions of the ruling political leadership. As to
the political forces making appeals for war, they are more interested
in speculating the issue in the fight for power rather than solving
the problem in favor of Azerbaijan.
The forces competing with one another in the region should also
realize that the freezing is either the least of the two evils or the
only real way towards the maintenance of stability. Although all the
mediators act in support of the speedy settlement of the problem,
they are also required to realize that there is only one possible
option in the domain of one’s wishes and the real chances. That is,
the option of the freezing.
It is also necessary to take into consideration the fact that the
Karabakh issue is no longer in the domain of the Armenian-Azerbaijani
bilateral relations; it has become the main cardinal lever for taking
control over the region. If there were no such struggle, and the
Minsk Group introduced a united and final option to the parties and
demanded that they immediately sign it, then neither the Armenian
nor the Azeri authorities would be able to do anything.
The absence of a united coercion testifies to the fact that the
problem is unsettled on the plane of the Russia-US rather than the
Armenia-Azerbaijan relations.
The freezing of the conflict against the political background is
the only option to be followed by all the parties whose mentality
is based on realistic state-national principles vs. some abstract
patriotic slogans or defeatist cosmopolitanism.