ORATORY AND POLITICAL DECISIONS ARE DIFFERENT
Gevorg Haroutyunyan

Azat Artsakh Daily
06 Dec 08
Republic of Nagorno Karabakh [NKR]

Interview with HRAYR KARAPETYAN, Vice Speaker of the National Assembly

"Mr. Karapetyan, how do you estimate the statement made by the
Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group in Helsinki?"

"I don’t think the Helsinki statement contains any extraordinary
clauses. Anyway, they didn’t say anything we hadn’t heard before.

Neither did they take any action we hadn’t been aware of. What
the Russian, French and American Foreign Ministers did was just
the reiteration of the clauses enshrined in the trilateral Moscow
Declaration.

I was more surprised by the contradictory statements made by American
Co-Chair Matthew Bryza. Unfortunately, this is not the first case,
and in this respect, Bryza may be considered a record holder as a
politician and diplomat.

He is reported to have first appealed to the parties to start the
settlement of the Artsakh issue with the territorial integrity of
Azerbaijan and then rejected his own proposal. I think as a responsible
politician and diplomat representing a superpower he should have a
more serious attitude to his obligations.

Unfortunately, the fact that this particular figure lacks seriousness
is not something new to us. With regard to the Armenian-Turkish
relations, Mr.

Bryza again represented his desires as some thing real. Our President
did, of course, make a real step by taking advantage of the football
match between the Armenian and Turkish representative teams and
inviting the Turkish President to Armenia, but the official Ankara
has not made any political or diplomatic response so far.

Moreover, what is happening now is just the contrary, because we more
often hear different responsible Turkish officials make statements
directly reiterating the traditional approaches of that country.

Unfortunately, Turkey has not made any positive step in its
relationship with Armenia. Whereas it is obvious that the country
uses advocacy tools, and deliberately represents Mr. Gul’s visit
to Armenia as an attemet of establishing warmer relations with our
country. And by doing this, it making an attempt to hamper the process
of the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide."

"In its plenary session, the ARFD Bureau made a decision that the
mutual concessions with regard to the Karabakh settlement process be
adequately, proportionally and simultaneously involved in the system
of package settlement. Can this be considered as a denial of one
of the Helsinki statements or do the basic principles of conflict
settlement need to be specified during the upcoming months?"

"Oratory and political decisions and actions are different things. The
decision of the ARFD Bureau naturally expresses the approaches
and principles of Dashnaktsutyun. Our party doesn’t have essential
arguments to the settlement principles declared by President Serge
Sargsyan.

I believe, not only Dashnaktsutyun but also any other political
force guiding itself by national interests cannot disagree with
the principles according to which Nagorno Karabakh cannot form part
of Azerbaijan in any status. The NKR should receive international
security guarantees and have a land border with Armenia.

Of course, the political negotiations are based on mutual concessions,
and we all should realize this. We are also required to realize the
fact that we do not want a war. We have held victory in a war imposed
on us, and we are trying to fix that victory in a relevant document.

Our enemy too, is naturally trying to extort something. Although one
of the negotiating parties is periodically making bellicose statements
pursuing propaganda goals, all the settlement principles are enshrined
in the official documents. If one of the parties violates that
principle tomorrow (we also know which party it is), it will find
itself in a strictly unfavorable and dangerous situation.

For us, this is an ace which we must be able to use for our
propaganda. And we must never cease that propaganda, at least for
an instant."