WHY CLINTON ASSURES ONLY AZERBAIJAN
HAKOB BADALYAN

LRAGIR.AM
11:58:34 – 23/04/2009

While everyone waits to see what president Obama will say on April
24, the U.S. state secretary Hillary Clinton says that she hopes
that the Nagorno-Karabakh question will somehow be solved within
the upcoming months. This statement cannot be considered news. A lot
were those who hoped hope now and will hope in the future. Perhaps,
it is not that meaningful to go into details of their hope, because
those who hope are quite well-informed people and, probably, the
grounds for their hope is not known to the public at least in form
of hints for them to assess the reality. Therefore, considering that
we deal with political figures and diplomats, it should not be ruled
out that they are able to consciously express unreasonable hopes
having a lot of prospects from it. In other words, the phenomenon
"bluff" may be carried into life, which, in reality, may solve a
diametrically opposite question. However, we can only make forecasts,
guess on this whole and it is even difficult to analyze because hopes
are very unthankful to analyze.

The interesting thing is that Hillary Clinton stated that "they
assured Azerbaijani government that their efforts in connection with
the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue will be enhanced". Why
Hillary Clinton mentions only Azerbaijan. Why she does not say that
they assured the Armenian government too, moreover, the head of the
Armenian state Serge Sargsyan states that the Karabakh settlement is
his dream and as soon as it happens, he will give up politics. Perhaps,
the U.S. does not want Serge Sargsyan to give up politics, the
U.S. may think that Serge Sargsyan’s job is not only the settlement
of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue and being the president of Armenia he
has a lot of other things to do. But, in this case, the U.S. cannot
settle the question for Azerbaijan, and leave it unsolved for Armenia.

Should we be sure in this connection? Probably no. It is absolutely
possible for the Karabakh conflict to be settled for Azerbaijan
and remain unsettled for Armenia. The point is that what is called
Nagorno-Karabakh issue is a process rather than a concrete state. This
process will go on unless the process of replacement of forces and
positions is going on in the world. Consequently, in this state what is
presumed by settlement supposes a settlement according to interests,
in other words, each of the sides solves its own questions in this
process. Consequently, a state may be shaped when the questions of
Azerbaijan will be more settled that those of Armenia, but the issue
itself will not be settled. What is called proposals of Madrid supposes
right this, when the Karabakh issue is spoken to be postponed. In
addition, it is not only Aliyev to state this, but first of all the
OSCE Minsk group co-chairs.

Even if we assume that it is not the decision of the status of
Nagorno-Karabakh to be postponed but the implementation of an already
decided version, all the same, only the Azerbaijani questions are
settled in the end. The point is that Azerbaijan gains two important
factors: time and strategic superiority to serve the time in its
interests in the form of those territories which are to be retuned
to Azerbaijan for some agreements on the Nagorno-Karabakh status. In
this phase, Azerbaijan does not need more. Unlike Bender, Aliyev
thinks to take everything but by parts. In other words, unlike Serge
Sargsyan, Aliyev does not only think to solve the Karabakh question,
but, probably, realizes that this is a process and the important is to
gain advantage in it. Perhaps, just for this reason the U.S. assures
only Azerbaijan that they are going to settle the conflict because it
notices that the ideas of Armenia about the settlement are completely
different and fit into the framework of trade ideas – we give this
and take this one and live happy and satisfied.