ACCORDING TO ANDRANIK TEVANIAN, EVEN IF ONE VILLAGE IS CEDED TO AZERBAIJAN KARABAKH WILL GO TO RUIN

Noyan Tapan

Nov 12, 2008

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, NOYAN TAPAN. "The political forces, who expect a
quick solution to the Nagorno Karabakh settlement, will be disappointed
deeply," Andranik Tevanian, the Director of the Politeconomia Institute
of Political Studies, stated at the November 12 press conference. He
affirmed that the active stage of the negotiations over the Nagorno
Karabakh settlement has finished, and the negotiations will not be
resumed by the end of the year.

The RA authorities, according to A. Tevanian, are inclined to delay
the real settlement to the conflict thinking that if former President
Robert Kocharian managed to delay the issue for 10 years, they will
also manage to.

According to A. Tevanian, before signing Moscow declaration
Armenia’s pro-governmental press and "court intellectuals" studied
society and prepared them for it by saying that "we do not need the
liberated territories, we need peace." According to the political
scientist, they wanted to convince society that ceding the above
mentioned territories is a necessary step. "However, when Ilham
Aliyev stated that besides those territories he also wants Karabakh,
they gave up the idea of ceding the territories and ran to Karabakh
for exercises to show that we have a battle-worthy army," Andranik
Tevanian mentioned. The political scientist stated that even if one
village is ceded to Azerbaijan, Karabakh will go to ruin.

According to A. Tevanian, it causes bewilderment that on the one
hand, the Armenians declare that they have a mighty army and on
the other hand, they are glad that allegedly the necessity to solve
the Nagorno Karabakh problem peacefully has been stipulated by the
Declaration. Indeed, as the political scientist emphasized, there
is no expression "not to use force" in the Declaration: it is just
mentioned that the sides should solve the problem politically. And
besides, as the political scientist affirmed, a country having a
mighty and non-corrupted army should not be afraid of a war.