FORMER SPOKESMAN OF ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY: "THE YEAR OF 2008 WAS MARKED BY THE UNWILLINGNESS OR INABILITY OF ARMENIAN POWERS TO PROPOSE NEW IDEAS ON THE KARABAKH CONFLICT"

Today.Az
politics/49992.html
Jan 8 2009
Azerbaijan

Vladimir Karapetyan, the former spokesman of Armenian Foreign Ministry
and coordinator of external ties of oppositional Armenian National
Congress, considers that the year of 2008 was primarily marked with
close negotiation process and unwillingness or inability of Armenian
powers to propose new ideas and positions on the Karabakh conflict,
clear for the people.

"The inability of powers to refute definite comments, voiced by
Turkey and Azerbaijan, weakened positions of Armenia in the result of
a loss of the image of the country, the growing threat of sanctions
and unusual passiveness of Karabakh are obvious", noted Karapetyan.

He said the culmination of this situation was the adoption of
the Moscow declaration without participation of Nagorno Karabakh
representatives.

"It was explained by the fact that the declaration fixes commitment to
settle the conflict peacefully, but Azerbaijan did not stop voicing
bellicose statements. In fact, we have made a unilateral concession,
signing a document without Karabakh’s participation for the first
time since 1994", noted Karapetyan.

This year, he thinks, Armenia must do everything possible to strengthen
its positions in the negotiation process.

Grayr Karapetyan, vice speaker of the Armenian parliament and member
of Dashnaktsutun, is optimistic about the process of the conflict
resolution.

He noted that in 2008 they managed to exclude the conflict resolution
by armed way while in 2009 efforts on the conflict resolution will
continue under the auspices of the Minsk Group.

In turn, secretary of the faction of "Flourishing Armenia" Aram
Safaryan, head of the parliamentary delegation of Armenia in OSCE,
noted that the rapporteur of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly on
Nagorno Karabakh Goran Lennmarker will present a regular report on
the resolution of the Karabakh conflict on February 19-20 and in
this connection on February 9-10 he will visit Armenia, then Baku
and perhaps Nagorno Karabakh.

Safaryan also voiced hope that the development of the process of
the conflict settlement will continue in 2009 and also did not rule
out involvement of new mediators to the process. At the same time,
he noted that international organizations to work with OSCE may also
be mediators.

"New mediators will appear depending on the rates of the resolution
process", said Safaryan.