WHAT HAPPENED TO MADRID DOCUMENT?
By Ivan Gharibyan

news.am
Nov 9 2009
Armenia

The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs’ latest visit to the region took place
under "too thick" a veil of secrecy: the international mediators showed
themselves "persons of very few words" with the media. What is more,
several days have passed, but no leak has so far come from the Azeri
mass media.

Meanwhile, what is known as the Madrid document is taking on a strange
aura. Both the international mediators and representatives of the
conflicting parties admit the fact that the Nagorno-Karabakh peace
process is developing under the Madrid document. From that point
on, however, the sides do not show further "uniformity" in their
positions. Rather, they show disagreements, and it is making them
"as slight as possible" that the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs’ efforts
must be aimed at.

The Madrid document is what "strange things" have recently happened
to. During the Co-Chairs’ last visit to the region, Russian Co-Chair
Yuri Merzlyakov told NEWS.am that the Madrid document had been revised
and would be submitted to the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders "at the
right moment." The "right moment", however, never comes. In any case,
no clear answer has been received to the question: did the Co-Chairs
submit the revised document to Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev during
their latest visit to the region on November 4-6?

Considering all that is going with the Madrid Principles, one can
arrive at two mutually exclusive conclusions. In the first case, the
Nagorno-Karabakh peace process is progressing, and all the parties
involved decided to stop leaking information on the Madrid document
until they agree on the last details for Yerevan and Baku to reach an
agreement without any problems. In the second case, the disagreements
between the Armenian and Azerbaijan Presidents are so sharp that there
is no point in speaking of any principles. The first conclusion is
supported by the fact that the Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents
agreed to hold the sixth meeting late this year, which means that
a bilateral agreement is possible. The opposite is corroborated
by official Baku’s more frequent non-constructive statements, and
Yerevan’s responses.

In any case, it is by the background to the next Sargsyan-Aliyev
meeting scheduled for late November that one can judge the results.

Despite the contradictory statements, on the threshold of the
Armenian-Azerbaijani presidential meeting, we can at least form an
idea of whether the peace process is "progressing" or "regressing".

The international mediators should remember, however, that the process
of revising the Madrid Principles behind "too thick" a veil of secrecy
may heighten the tension in both Armenia and Azerbaijan and impede
the preparations for the implementation of agreements.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress