SHAVARSH KOCHARIAN: NECESSITY TO RECONSIDER NEGOTIATIONS’ CONCEPTION CAN EMERGE

Noyan Tapan
Sep 17, 2009

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 17, NOYAN TAPAN. RA Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh
Kocharian considers that if Azerbaijan continues its destructive line,
a necessity to reconsider Nagorno Karabakh negotiations’ conception
can emerge.

"Madrid Principles can be a good basis for achieving settlement on
the basis of compromises. However, the negotiations process, in my
estimation, reaches a deadlock because of Azerbaijan’s destructive
position. Baku does not admit compromises and proceeds from the
principle "everything or nothing," more exactly, "everything or war,"
Mr Kocharian said. At that, in his words, official Baku constantly
takes steps increasing tension in the region.

In Deputy Minister’s opinion, such policy of Azerbaijan leads the
affair to a deadlock, and changing the conception of the negotiations
process can be a way out of it, which will result in changing its
format. "For more than a year Azerbaijan had been denying even
existence of Madrid Principles though it had accepted them as a
basis for negotiations. If Azerbaijan continues its destructive line,
the window of current conception’s possibilities can be closed."

S. Kocharian considers that the current format of negotiations,
from which the main conflict side, Nagorno Karabakh Republic has
been excluded, is consequence of harsh position of Azerbaijan, which
in no way agrees to such participation though for years it had been
conducting negotiations with the very Karabakh and concluded truce
directly. Continuation of Baku’s destructive policy will lead the
negotiations process to a deadlock, and a necessity of changing
the negotiations process’ conception will emerge, which proceeds
from the facts that Nagorno Karabakh people’s realized right of
self-determination is the basis of the problem and policy of massacres
and ethnic cleansings of Armenian population and aggression against
the Nagorno Karabakh Republic carried out by Azerbaijan is the basis
of the conflict and its escalation.

"Under such a conception of the negotiations process Nagorno Karabakh’s
non-participation in it will look already absolutely unnatural,"
Mr Kocharian mentioned.

While, S. Kocharian admitted that parts of Madrid Principles
"disclosed" in July create a possibility for NKR to become a subject
of the process and for its participation in the negotiations. However,
official Baku continues denying such a possibility and by doing so
distorts problem’s essence.

If Azerbaijan with its statements does not try to predetermine
the course and result of the negotiations process by the principle
"everything or nothing," Madrid Principles can lead to a compromise
admissible for all three conflict sides, Shavarsh Kocharian concluded.