THINK CALMLY ABOUT CEDING KARABAKH?

168 Zham
Nov 11 2008
Armenia

"Facts demonstrate that the only aim of [former President] Robert
Kocharyan and [incumbent President] Serzh Sargsyan is not Karabakh,
but remaining in power," the leader of the opposition Hnchak Social
Democratic Party of Armenia [HSDPA], Lyudmila Sargsyan, said at a news
conference yesterday [10 November]. The latter recalled how Kocharyan
and Sargsyan announced during the [February] presidential election
that if he came to power [former President] Levon Ter-Petrosyan
would cede Karabakh, and that they were the ones who would keep
Karabakh. Lyudmila Sargsyan said that the opposition understood well
at the time of the election that the country should have a legitimate
president in order to achieve a decision on the Karabakh issue that
would benefit the Armenians, "however the government did not want to
realize what results the rigged election could have".

"Now they have run out of their arguments and will go for concessions,"
Lyudmila Sargsyan said yesterday, adding that this is the reason under
the circumstances the opposition is "reserved so that Armenia appears
in the most favourable light and the issue does not end in loosing the
seven districts [the currently Armenian-controlled districts around
Nagornyy Karabakh]". "We should try to keep what we gained with blood,
at any cost," she said.

A former deputy minister of national security, Gurgen Yeghiazaryan,
said that with the signing of the 2 November declaration on the
Karabakh settlement by the Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian presidents
in Moscow, Nagornyy Karabakh had been pushed out of the negotiations
as an independent party to the conflict. "International organizations
described the [19 February] presidential election, accompanied with
beating and violence, as ‘a step forward’, because they had something
to receive, and they are getting it now," Yeghiazaryan said, adding:
"Only the people of Karabakh should settle the Karabakh issue –
neither Serzh Sargsyan nor Robert Kocharyan." Yeghiazaryan answered
positively to the question whether suspension of opposition rallies is
acceptable under these conditions, saying "we gave [the government]
time to think calmly and to act, but we will not be observing calmly
how Karabakh is being ceded".

A member of the HSDPA and former deputy defence minister, Vahan
Shirkhanyan, said at the same news conference that if there is an
attempt to settle the Karabakh issue in line with the currently
existing proposals, "it means that the international community
plants a mine in the Caucasus and it can explode any moment, which
this community wants it to". Speaking about the "Madrid principles"
Shirkhanyan said it is unclear what concessions are being discussed –
land in return for land, road in return for road, or money in return
for money?

Shirkhanyan said that conversations about peacekeepers are unacceptable
as well under these conditions. He said that peacekeepers would be
representing different countries and each of them would be pursuing
their national interests on the Armenian-Azerbaijani contact line. The
former deputy defence minister said that an option regarding
peacekeepers was discussed in 1998, according to which the major
part of them would be a Turkish unit. According to Shirkhanyan,
this option is being discussed up to present.