WAS BABAYAN THE "SYMBOL"?
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07:02 pm | May 07, 2009
Politics
Former commander of the NKR defense army Samvel Babayan truly believes
that the NKR has ceased to be a military-political unit and factor
in the region and is out of the peace talks only after it was decided
to take Samvel Babayan out of the game back in 1999.
Was Babayan left out of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace talks with the
decision by Robert Kocharyan? Does this mean that Babayan is accusing
Kocharyan? In response to that Babayan said:
"I repeat: we haven’t had any problems with Robert Kocharyan. If we
take a look back, we will see that in 1999, Robert Kocharyan was in a
worse situation than me. Robert Kocharyan couldn’t have done anything
back then."
Then who do you mean?
"Do you want me to spell out names? Just take a look at the list of
securtiy council officials on December 15, 1999 and you will see
the names. There are also current opposition members who had set
the issue to remove Samvel Babayan so they could have power. Now
they are standing on the side and screaming. There were 15 people,
but you know better than I do how Robert Kocharyan was."
Samvel Babayan also touched upon concessions in the NKR conflict. He
stated that the people of Karabakh will not agree to any concession and
that the conflict can’t be resolved without the consent of the people
of Karabakh. Samvel Babayan claimed that the liberated territories
can’t be given because there is more wealth there than the oil in
the Caspian basin.
Samvel Babayan doesn’t consider the Sargsyan-Aliev meeting pivotal
because all talks are nonsensical as long as Aliev hasn’t come to
grips with the fact that Karabakh cannot be part of Azerbaijan.
Babayan also stated that Artsakh is a part of Armenia and even if the
Armenian people concede Karabakh and the liberated lands, there will
be no right to go on living.
As for Turkish-Armenian relations, Samvel Babayan believes that
Turkey will put an end to the negotiations and the proclamation
signed in Switzerland a day before the genocide commemoration was
not by chance. According to the former Karabakh army commander, that
was to the benefit of Turkey because it did not want to hear the word
genocide pronounced.